■ '■:.■ i ^ %Si5l?i^^ IN THE PERMANENT WAY •The^)<^o In the Permanent Way BY FLORA ANNIE STEEL AUTHOR OF "on THE FACE OF THE WATERS," ETC. ' ' 5 ; > 3 J J ) THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 1897 All rights reserved Copyright, 1S97, By the M ACM ill an COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped, October, 1897. Reprinted. November, 1897. J. S. Cashing & Co. - Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. CONTENTS Shub'rat In the Permanent Way On the Second Story . Glory - or -Woman At the Great Duri?ar The Blue-throated God A Tourist Ticket The King's Well . Uma Himavutee Young Lochinvar . A Bit of Land The Sorroavful Hour A Danger Signal Amor Vincit Omnia The Wings of a Dove The Swimmers The Fakeer's Drum At Her Beck and Call Music hath Charms PAGE 1 34 54 94 113 139 160 193 213 232 251 267 285 305 331 355 370 376 386 ^U i U SHUB'RAT The church-gong hung from the level branch of a spreading sirus tree, whence the slight breeze of dawn, rustling the dry pods of a past summer and stirring the large soft puff-blossoms of the present, seemed to gather up a faint whisper and a fainter perfume to be upborne into space — further and further and further — by the swelling sound-waves of the gong as it vibrated to old Deen Mahomed's skilful stroke. More like a funeral knell, this, calling the dead to forgetfulness, than a cheerful summons of the living to give thanks for life, for creation and preservation. You could hear each mellow note quiver into silence, before — loud and full with a sort of hollow boom — the great disc of bronze shook once more to its own resounding noise ; seeming in its agitation to feel the strangeness of the task more than the striker; though, to say sooth, few things in earth or heaven were more incongruous than this church chime and the man who rang it. For Deen Mahomed, as his name implies, was of the faith of B 1 Islam ; fierce-featured, hawk-eyed, with the nameless look of his race; a look suiting the curved sword he wore, in virtue of his office as watchman, better than the brass badge slung over his shoulder pro- claiming him to be a member of the Indian Church Establishment — that alien Church in an alien land. And yet the old man's figure fitted close with the building he guarded; for despite the new title of St. John's-in-the-Wilderness, the church remained outwardly what it had been built to be — a Ma- homedan tomb. Its white dome and corner cupolas rose familiarly into the blue sky beyond the sirus trees, where, even at this early hour, a hint of com- ing heat was to be seen in a certain pallidness and hardness. Within, beneath that central dome, en- circled now by pious Christian texts, lay buried a champion of another God, whose name, interlaced into a thousand delicate traceries, still formed the decoration of each architrave, each screen; lay buried, let us hope, beyond sight or sound of what went on above his helplessness. How this change had come about is of no moment to the story. Such things have been, nay, are, in India, seeming in truth more fantastic when set down in pen and ink than they do when seen in the warm clasp of that Indian sunlight which shines down indifferently on so many a strange anomaly of caste, and creed, and custom. Most likely when shub'rat 3 the wave of evangelical fervour reached the East to prepare the way for the Great Sacrifice of purifica- tion by blood and fire which came to native and alien alike in the horrors and wonders of " Fifty- seven," some pious bureaucrat had felt a certain militant satisfaction in handing over a heathen edi- fice to Christian uses. Such things have their senti- mental side ; and this tomb had been — like many another — Crown property, and so had become ours by right of conquest. No one else, at any rate, had laid claim to it, except, in some vague, mysterious way, old Deen Mahomed, and he only to its guar- dianship as being "the dust of the feet of the descendants of HuzriU-Ameerulla-moomeereen-ulli- Moortdza, the Holy." In other words, an inheritor of the saints in light. Now this sort of title is one not likely to find favour in alien eyes. Despite this, Deen Mahomed remained guardian of the Church of St. John's-in- the-Wilderness, thanks to that ineradicable sense — one may almost say common sense — of justice which dies hard in the Englishman of all creeds. The only difference to the old man — at least so the authorities assumed — being that he wore a sword, a badge, chimed the church-gong, and re- ceived the munificent sum of five rupees a month for performing these trivial duties ; which latter fact naturally put the very idea of discontent beyond 4 SHUB HAT the pale of practical politics. Apparently Deen Ma- homed was of this opinion also ; at least he never hinted at objection. Even now, as he stood unmovable save for one slowly swinging arm, there was neither dislike nor approval on the fierce, yet indifferent face looking out at the white glare of the tomb beyond the sirus shade, at the worshippers — laden with Bibles and Prayer-books — passing up the steps, crossing the plinth and so disappearing within, and at the long line of vehicles — from the Commissioner's barouche to the clerk's palki — seeking the shade to await their owners' return when the service should be over. Not so wearisome a task as might be imag- ined, since the big bazaar was near for refreshment or recreation; so near, in fact, that any solemn pause was apt to give prominence to the twanging of unmentionable sutaras or bursts of unmistakable laughter. For, as ill-luck would have it, not only the bazaar, but the very worst quarter of it, lay just behind the fringe of date palms which gave such local colour to the sketches of the church which the Chaplain's wife drew for their friends at home. And yet, in a way, this close propinquity to the atrocious evils of heathendom had its charm for the little colony of the elect who lived beside the Chaplain. In the still evenings, when the scent of the oranges which were blossoming madly in the SHUB RAT O watered gardens round the houses filled the air, the inhabitants would sit out among the fast-fading English flowers, and shake their heads in sorrowful yet satisfied sympathy with their own position as exiles in that invisible Sodom and Gomorrah. In- visible, because St. John's-in-the-Wilderness rose between them and it, shutting out everything save the impartial sky, whence the sunshine poured down alike on Christian and heathen, just and unjust. Thus the visible church was to them as the invisible one; a veil between them and the people. It was a square building recessed and buttressed to a hexagon. The Chaplain, however, preferred to call it a St. Andrew's cross, and perhaps he was right. Perhaps again Deen Mahomed and his cult had really had as little to say to its form as the Chaplain ; such responsibility being reserved to the primeval sraddha, or four-pointed death-offering. Be that as it may, there was a coolness between the new parson and his watchman, owing to the former declaring it to be a scandal that the latter should hold such office in a Christian place of wor- ship, when he was not even an inquirer ! Certainly he was not. He neither inquired of others nor tolerated inquiry from them. He slept on the plinth of nights, chimed the gong by day, and kept the rest of his life to himself. That was all. Not one of the congregation filing into the church 6 SHUB RAT that morning knew more of him than this. So he stood indifferently waiting for the first note of the harmonium to tell him his task was over; listening for it to pulsate out into the sunshine, and, blend- ing with the last note of the gong, go forth upon the endless waves of ether. Go forth hand-in-hand, plaintiff and defendant ; a quaint couple seeking ex- tinction, or perhaps the Great White Throne against which the ripple of life beats in vain. The note came this morning as on other mornings, and Deen Mahomed turned, indifferent as ever, to his house. It was a mud and thatch hovel clinging to one side of a miniature tomb, half in ruins, which some follower of the saint had built within the shadow of his master's grave. It stood just opposite the flight of steps up which a late worshipper or two was hurrying, glad, even at that early hour, to es- cape from the glare of sunlight. Yet on the warm dust before the hovel a child of four or five sat con- tentedly making a garden, while the coachman of a smart barouche and pair drawn up close by looked down with interest on the process. 'Twas God Almighty, says Bacon, who first planted a garden ; but ever since the task has had a strange charm for man, and even Deen Mahomed paused with a smile for the little watered plots and pretended paths. " Thou hast encroached on thy neighbour's land to-day, Rahmut," he said, " and gone into the road- SHUB RAT / way. Lo ! the Sirhar will make tliee pay revenue, little robber." ''Trust tliem for that," put in the coachman quickly; then he chuckled. "But the boy grows; yea ! he grows to take Ms father's place. ^^ The old man frowned, yet laid his hand gently on the child's head, as he said evasively : " Have a care, Rahmut, whilst I am gone, and water thy rose, or 'twill die in this heat." He pointed to a drooping white rosebud which the little boy had stuck in his centre bed. " Ay," replied the coachman, " 'tis hot indeed for the time of year." " As hot a SliuhWdt as I remember. God send the night be cool and bring peace." " God send it may," echoed the coachman piously, his evil-looking face showing the worse for his unction. " God send all get their deserts on this the great Night of Record." He made the remark without a quiver, oblivious, apparently, of a long series of petty thefts against his master's grain, and many another peccadillo of the past year. But then, though every faithful Mahomedan believes that on SJmhWdt God comes to earth with all the saints in glory, there, in the pres- ence of the Dead, to write his Record for the coming year upon the foreheads of the Living, things had a knack of going on after this judgment much as they 8 shub'rat did before ; especially in regard to such trivial offences as the theft of grain from a horse. "God send they may," re-echoed the old man, suddenly, fiercely. The words seemed to cut like a knife; yet once more he laid his hand upon the child's head almost in caress. "Have a care, child, for thy self and thy rose. Thou didst not pick it, sure, from the sahib's garden?" he added hastily. Rahmut threw up a handful of dry dust and spread his little skinny arms in gay denial. " Lo ! nana ! what a thought ! I begged it of the padre's haba. He comes ever to the assemblage with flowers, and the white mem, his mother, bade him give it to me and that too — she brought it in her bag of books." He pointed with pride to some strips of torn white paper stuck in the sand as walls to the garden. Then his tone changed to tears. "Oh, nana! nana! thou hast spoilt it ! — thou hast spoilt it ! " For the old man in sudden fury had swept the remains of the offending tract from their foundations, crushed them to a ball, and flung it across the sunshiny roadway to the plinth, where it skimmed along the smooth surface to roll finally to the very door of the church. "No tears, child — no tears, I say," came in a fierce order. " If thou wouldst not have me beat shub'eat 9 thee, no tears. Thou shalt not even play with such things, thou shalt not touch them. I, the dust from the feet of the saints, say it." So, leaving the child whimpering, he turned to the hovel, muttering to himself. Rujjub, the coach- man, nodded to the next on the rank. " The elephant escaped through the door and his tail stuck in the keyhole," he said, with a sneer. " Meean fakeer-ji will not have his grandson touch the Ungeel (Evangel), and chimes the church-gong himself. But, in truth, he loves the old tomb — God smite those who defile it — as he loves the boy. God smite those who sent the boy's father over the Black Water to fight the infidel in China. Lo ! even Jehad (holy war) is accursed with such leaders." " Bah ! Rujjub," retorted his fellow cheerfully. " 'Tis so sometimes without fault. ' He climbed the camel to get out of the way, and still the dog bit him,' say the wise. The Meean is half-crazed, all know that. And as for thee I Did thy master pay as fair as mine we should have less zeal from some folk, should we not, brothers? A fist full of rupees brings peace, since there is no clapping with one palm!" A chuckle ran round the squatting grooms at this home-thrust at Rujjub the grumbler — Rujjub the agitator. The sweet high voices of English women singing a missionary hymn came floating 10 shub'kat out through the open doors. A hovering kite, far in the blue, swooped suddenly, startling the green and gold parrots — inlaid like a mosaic pattern on the white dome — to screaming flight for shelter towards the sirus trees. Little Rahmut, forgetting his tears, built fresh walls of sand to his garden and watered the fading rosebud anew. Then a sort of murmurous silence, born of the measured cadence of one voice from within and the lazy, listless gossiping without, settled down over the glare and the shade. Only from the hut came no sound at all. No sound even from the little tomb where the old watchman knelt, his hands on his knees in the attitude of prayer, his keen eyes staring straight into the soft darkness — for the only entrance was so small that the crouch- ing figure blocked out the day. But darkness or light were alike to Deen Mahomed, lost as he was to the present in a dull memory and hope. Perhaps, when, years before, he had first begun to hold his service in defiance of that other worship, he may have put up some definite petition. Now there was none. Only the cry so seldom heard by human ears, yet whose echoes so often resound like thunder through the world — How long, O lord ! how long? So he knelt, paralysed by the very perplexity of his own prayer, until a louder burst from the shub'eat 11 harmonium and a sudden hubbub among the car- riages warned him that the service was over. He rose indifferently, and came out into the sunlight. It lay now like a yellow glaze over the white stucco of St. John's-in-the-Wilderness, over the gaily dressed congregation hurrying to escape from it in their cool homes, over Rujjub whipping his horses viciously, obedient to a sharp order from the Englishman who had just handed a delicate woman into the carriage, over Rahmut's garden with its white rosebud. And then ! The whole thing was past in a moment. A plunge — a swerve ! a little naked imp making a dive before those prancing feet with an eager, childish cry ; then a shriek from the pale-faced lady standing up in the barouche, a small figure, crushed and bleeding, in an old man's arms, and a shout seeming to fill the air. "Rahmut! Ah, mercy of the Most High! Jus- tice ! Justice I " "Don't look, my dear," said an English voice; "please remember that you — you had better drive home. It was the child's own fault. Doctor, hadn't we better drive home ? " " Yes, yes. Drive home, dear lady ! " said another English voice in hurried approach to the scene. "You are not fit. Now then, good people, stand back, please. Carmichael, make those niggers stand back. I must see the boy." 12 shub'rat It was easy enough to ensure compliance so far as the pale faces, made paler by shocked sympathy^ went ; easier still to enforce it from the darker ones accustomed to obey orders given in that foreign accent. But how about the old man standing like a stag at bay, clutching the child to his breast, and backing towards his hut with a loud, fierce cry ? " Touch him not ! Touch him not ! Touch him not!" " We are only driving him crazy," said the Doctor aside, " and I doubt if it is much good. I saw the wheel pass right over the chest. Let him be " " But it seems so cruel, so unchristian," protested the Parson. The Doctor smiled oddly. " That doesn't alter the fact. You're no good here ; no more am I. Here, you chuprassie ! Run like the devil to the dispensary, and tell Faiz Khan he's wanted. If he is out, one of the Mahomedan dressers — a Mahomedan, mind you — and he is to report to me. Come along. Parson. The kindest thing we can do is to go away. It's humiliating, but true." Apparently it was so, for a sort of passive resigna- tion came to the straining arms as the dark faces crowded round once more with plain, unhesitating, unvarnished comments. " Lo ! he is dead for sure. Well, it is the Lord's shub'eat 13 will, and he hath found freedom. See you, he wanted his flower, the foolish one." " 'Twas the horses did it," said another. " They are evil-begotten beasts. Rujjub hath said so often." *' Ai ! hurrihdt! All things are ill-begotten to one ill-begot, and Rujjub's beasts know he stints their stomachs-full," put in a third. " When I drove them in Tytler sahib's stable they were true born (^.e. gentle) as the saJiih was himself. Then he took pension and went home to Wildi/et, and I have a new master who only keeps ?^ phitto7i (phaeton). It is undignified ; but, there, 'tis fate, nought else." But Deen Mahomed, sitting with the dead child in his arms, was not thinking of Rujjub or his horses, of phittons or barouches, not even of chariots of fire — in a way not even of Rahmut himself — but sim- ply of a tract and a child's tears — those last tears which were to be a last memory for ever and ever. Yet even this thought brought no definite emotion, only a dull wonder why such things should be. A wonder so vague, so dull that when Faiz Deen ar- rived to give the verdict of death, the old man, yielding readily to the inevitable, echoed the truism that it was God's will. What else, indeed, could it be to the fierce old fanatic with his creed of kismet f That same evening he lingered awhile in the big bazaar on his way homewards from the sandy stretch 14 shub'rIt of desert land beyond the city walls, where he had left a new anthill of a grave among the cluster be- longing to his people ; lingered not for pleasure but for business, since the events of the day had made it necessary that he should spend yet a few more annas from the five rupees he gained by wearing a sword, a badge, and chiming the church-gong. For it was Shub'i'dt; the night — the one night of all the long year — when the souls of the dead are per- mitted to visit the ancestral home. Therefore little Rahmut, so lately numbered amongst the cloud of witnesses, must not be neglected ; he must find his portion like the others — a Benjamin's portion of good things such as children love. It was already dark, but even there in the bazaar the little lamps of the dead shone from many a house, giving an unwonted radiance to the big brass platters of the sweetstuff shop where the old man paused to haggle over full weight and measure ; since even in feasting the dead, the living must look after themselves. A strange sight this. Tlie noisy bazaar, more full of stir than usual, since many a thrifty soul had put off marketing till the last. Overhead, the myriad-hued stars which, in these foggy climes, come back to memory as an in- tegral part of the Indian night, and, beneath them, the little twinkling lamps set out in rows. Thou- sands of them — so much was certain from the pale shub'rat 15 suffused light showing like a dim aurora above the piled shadow of the city. On every side the same soft radiance, save towards St. John's-in-the-Wilder- ness rising dark beyond the fringe of palm trees. This Feast of All Souls was not for it, and to the crass ignorance of those who lived in the garden- circled houses behind it the twinkling lights set for the dead were but a sign of some new wickedness in Sodom and Gomorrah, or, at best, of some heathen rite over which to shake the head regretfully. So in front of the cavernous shop, visible by the glow, the old watchman fumbled beneath his badge with reluctant hand, for a few pence, listening the while to Rujjub's account of the morning's tragedy given in the balcony above where the latter was lounging away his leisure among heavy perfumes and tinkling jewels. One of the hearers looked down over the wooden railing, and nodded cheer- fully at the chief mourner. '' It is God's will, father ; no one was to blame." ''To blame," echoed Rujjub, with a thick laugh, for he was in the first loquacity of semi-intoxication and still full of resentment. " The saJiihs say I was to blame. It is their way. But they will learn better. It is our blame if we do this and that. My brother's blame that he would -not fight over the seas and get killed like Rahmut's father. 16 shub'rIt 'Tis our blame for everything except for our rupees and our women — the sahibs can stomach them." Some one laughed, a gay laugh chiming to tlie tinkle of jewels. " Wdh ! thou mayst laugh now, Nargeeza ! " con- tinued the man's voice savagely; "thou knowest not what virtue means " " ' Ari^ brother, thou hast a hole in thy tail, said the sieve to the needle,' " quoted the other voice amid a louder titter and tinkle. Rujjub swore under his breath. " So be it, sister ! but a day of reckoning will come, and thou be damned for thy dalliance with the infidel. Yea, it will come; it will surely come." The words echoed through Deen Mahomed's heart and brain as, leaving the shrill squabble with its running accompaniment of titters and tinkles and broad masculine guffaws behind him, he made his way back to his empty hovel. " Yea, it will come ; it will surely come ! " What else was possible Avhen God, a justly of- fended God, was above all? We in the West have not a monopoly in the Tower of Siloam ; that belongs to every religion, to none more right- fully than to the Faith of Islam, which leaves all thinofs in the hand of Providence. The belief brought a certain fierce patience to shub'kat 17 the old man as he finished his preparations for the ghostly guests who, on that night alone, could partake of the hospitality of the living. The lamps, mere wicks and oil in little shells of baked clay, Avere ready luted to their places by mud, outlining the interior of the tomb where Deen iNlahomed performed all the rites of his religion; outlining it so strangely, that when they were lit, the old man, kneeling before the white cloth spread upon the floor, looked as if prisoned in a cage of light. There was no darkness then, only that soft radiance reflected from the newly whitewashed walls upon that fair white sheet on which, with calm ceremony, he laid the little earthen platters of food one by one, designating their owners by name. "This to my grandson, Rahmut, who has found freedom." That was the last dedication, and the old voice trembled a little, ever so little, as it went on into the formula of faith in one God, speaking through the mouths of his Prophets. Not one prophet to- night but many, for were they not all on earth — Moses and Elias, Jesus and Mahomed — taking part in the Great Assize where those dead ances- tors would plead for the living who had inherited their sins, their failures? Before such a tribunal as that there must be justice — justice for all things just and unjust. 18 shub'rat So, half-kneeling, half-sitting, the old Mahome- dan waited for the finger of God to write his fate for the coming year upon his forehead — waited, resting against the wall, for the spirits of the dead to come silently, invisibly, to the feast pre- pared for them. And Rahmut had a Benjamin's portion to console him for those tears — those last tears ! II The church-gong was chiming again, and again it was ShuhWdt. Not for the first time since Deen Mahomed had put little Rahmut's platter of sweets among the Feast of the Dead, for the years had passed since the child had sat in the sunlight planting gardens. How many the old man did not consider; in point of fact it did not matter to his patience. In the end God's club must fall on the unjust; so much was sure to the eye of faith. Something more also, if the signs of the times spoke true. When the bolt fell it would not be from the blue ; the mutterings of the storm were loud enough, surely, to be heard even by those alien ears. And yet Deen Mahomed, fanatic and church-chimer, standing on that hot summer evening beneath the siriis blossoms smiting the voice from the quavering disc of metal, knew no more than this — that the time was at hand. shub'rat 19 Whether it was always so, or whether the great Revolt was always pre-arranged, can scarcely at this distance of time be determined. Certain it is that many, like old Deen Mahomed, were simply waiting ; waiting for the sign of God to slay and spare not. Clang ! The mellow note went out into the darkening heat ; for the sun was almost at its setting. St. John's-in-the-Wilderness showed all the whiter against the deepening shadows of the sky. Clang ! Out into the stillness, the silence, as it had gone all these restless, waiting years. Clang ! Yet again ! How long, O Lord, how long ? eij * * * * * God and his Prophet ! what was that ? A clamour, and above it — familiar beyond mis- take — one word, '-'-Deen! Been I ''^ (''The Faith! The Faith!") Deen ? Yes, Deen Mahomed ! — A hot breath of wind from the east rustled the dry pods and stirred the perfumed puff-blossoms — a scorching wind from the east whirled the clamour and the cry into the old man's ears — through his brain — through his heart. ''Been! Been! Been!'' 20 shub'rat The disc of metal, unstruck, hung quivering ; slower and slower, fainter and fainter, till, like the breath of one who dies in his sleep, the vibration ceased. But the note went alone into eternity, seeking judgment ; for the harmonium was mute. " Been ! Been ! Been ! " The cruellest cry that men have made for them- selves ! ****** It had been long dark ere the old man returned ; to what he scarcely knew. As he stumbled from sheer fatigue on the steps, and sat down to rest a space, he remembered nothing save that the call had come and that he had obeyed it. He had smitten more than metal, and had smitten remorselessly. A terrible figure this ; his old hands trembling with their work ; his fierce old eyes ablaze ; his garments stained and bloody. Beyond the white pile of the tomb the red flare of burning roof trees told their tale, and every now and again an uproarious out- burst of horrid menace, and still more horrid laugh- ter, came to hint that the w^ork was not all complete. Yet overhead the stars shone peacefully as ever; and, above the city, the pale radiance of the death- feasts showed serene. The remembrance of the Festival and its duties came to the old man's mind in a great pulse of satis- lied revenge. The tomb was his again ; nay, not his. shub'rat 21 but the saints, of whose feet he was the dust ; those saints who would visit the world that night. He sat for an instant staring over the way towards his own hovel, then rose slowly, showing in every movement the fatigue of unusual exertion. Well, he had done his part ; he had slain, and spared not at all. The others might linger for the sake of greed; as for him, his work was done. With a fierce sigh of relief he turned and limped towards the church. It was darkness itself within the deep doorway; but the lamps were there, and he had flint and steel. So one by one the lights shone out, revealing the sacrilegious accessories of that past worsliip. And yet it was not light enough for SJmFrdt, not even when he had lit the candles on the altar. Still, that was soon remedied. A journey or two backwards and forwards to his own hovel, and a ring of flickering oil cressets encircled the table where it was his turn, at last, to spread the feast of the dead. So large a feast that there was not room enough for all, and he had to set a square of lights round a white cloth laid upon the floor. "This to my grandson, Rahmut, on whom be peace for ever and ever." That, once more, was the last offering ; and as the old man's voice merged into the sonorous Arabic formula of faith it trembled not at all, but echoed 22 shub'rat up into the dome in savage, almost insane triumph and satisfaction. This was Shuh'rdt indeed — a Night of Record. And there was room and to spare beneath those architraves, which displayed the Great Name again and again in every scrap of tracery, for all the saints in heaven to stand and judge between him and his forefathers for the sin that had been done, the blood that had been spilt — those forefathers who had ridden through the land with that cry of ''''Deen! DeenT'' on their lips, and had conquered. As they, the descendants, would conquer now I Yea I let them judge ; even Huzrut Isa ^ himself and the blessed Miriam his mother; for there were times when even motherhood must be forgotten. His trembling old hands, strained under the task which will not bear description, rested now on his bent knees ; his head was thrown backward against the lectern on which the Bible lay open at the lesson for the day ; his face, stern even in its satis- faction, gazed at the twinkling death-lights, among which little Rahmut's platter of sweets showed conspicuous. Yea ! let them come and judge ; let them write his fate upon his forehead. Fatigue, content, the very religious exaltation raising him above the actual reality of what was, and had been, all conspired to bring about a sort 1 Jesus. shub'kIt 23 of trance, a paralysis, not of action deferred, as in the past, but of deeds accomplished. And so, after a time, with his head still against the lectern, he slept the sleep of exhaustion. Yet, even in his dreams the old familiar war cry fell more than once, like a sigh, from his lips, ''Been! Been!'' A horrible scene, look at it how you will; but, even in its horror, not altogether base. From without came a faint recollection of the blood-red glare of fire in the sky, a faint echo of the drunken shouts and beast-like cries of those who had taken advantage of the times to return to their old evil doings. Within, there was nothing save the pale radiance of the twinkling lamps set round the Death-Feast, the old man asleep against the lectern, and silence. Until, with a whispering, kissing sound, a child's bare feet fell upon the bare stones — a tiny child, still doubtful of its balance, with golden hair shin- ing in the light. A scarlet flush of sleep showed on its cheeks, a stain of deeper scarlet showed on the little white night-gown it wore. Perhaps it had slept through the horrors of the night, perhaps slept on, even when snatched up by mother or nurse in the last wild flight for safety towards a sanctuary. Who knows? Who will ever know half the story of the great Mutiny? But there it 24 shub'rIt was, sleep still lingering in the wide blue eyes attracted by the flickering lights. On and on, un- steadily, it came, past the old man dreaming of Jehdd^ past the lights themselves — happily unhurt — to stretch greedy little hands on Rahmut's sweeties. So, with a crow of delight, playing, sucking, playing, in high havoc upon the fair white cloth. ^ ^ yf: yp ^ ^ Was it the passing of the spirits coming to judg- ment which set the candle flames on the altar a-sway- ing towards the cressets below them, or was it only the rising breeze of midnight ? Was it the Finger of Fate, or only the fluttering marker hanging from the Bible above which touched the old man's fore- head ? Who knows ? Who dares to hazard " Yea " or "Nay" before such a scene as this? Surely, with that blood-red flare in the sky, those blood-red stains on earth, the passion and the pity, the strain and stress of it all need a more impartial judgment than the living can give. So let the child and the old man remain among the lights flickering and flaring before the unseen wind heralding a new day, or the unseen Wisdom beginning a new Future. ^ ¥f: ^ ^ ^ ^ Deen Mahomed woke suddenly, the beads of per- spiration on his brow, and looked round him fear- shub'eat 25 fully as men do when roused, by God knows what, from a strange dream. Then, to his bewilderment, came a child's laugh. Saints in heaven and earth! Was that Rahmut? Had he come back for his own in that guise ? Did the padre-sahihs speak true when they said the angels had golden hair and pale faces ? He crouched for- ward on his hands like a wild beast about to spring, his eyes fixed in a stupid stare. There, within the ring of holy lights, on the fair white cloth, was a child with outstretched hands full of Rahmut's sweets and a little gurgle of delight in the cry which echoed up into the dome. " Nanna, dekho ! (see) — dehho^ nanna." It was calling to its nurse, not to the old man ; yet, though he had begun to grasp the truth, his heart thrilled strangely to the once familiar sound. Ndna ! ^ And it had chosen Rahmut's portion, had claimed the child's place — the child's own place ! What was that? A step behind him — a half- drunken laugh — a dull red flash of a sabre which had already done its work — Rujjub, with a savage yell of satisfaction, steering straight as his legs would carry him to a new victim. But he had reckoned without that unseen figure crouching in the shadow by the lectern ; reckoned without the confused clash- ing and clamour of emotion vibrating in the old 1 Grandfather. 26 shub'rat man's bosom beneath the stroke of a strange chance ; reckoned, it may be, without the Fate written upon the high narrow forehead which held its beliefs fast prisoners. There was no time for aught save impulse. The devilish face, full of the lust of blood, had passed already. Then came a cry, echoing up into the dome : " Been ! Been ! Allah-i-liukk ! " The old watchman stood, still with that stupid stare, gazing down at the huddled figure on its face which lay before him, so close that the warm blood gurgling from it horridly already touched his bare feet. What had he done? Why had ho done it? To save the child who had claimed the child's place? — To be true ? — Well, it was done ! and those were voices outside — men coming to pillage the church, no doubt — there was silver in the chest, he knew — that^ of course, had been Rujjub's errand, and his comrades would not be far behind — they would find the dying man, and then ? — Yea ! the die was cast, and, after all, it had been Rahmut's platter ! With these thoughts clashing and echoing through heart and soul Deen ]\Iahomed sprang forward, seized the child, stifling its cries with his hand, and disappeared into the darkness. None too soon, for the yell of rage greeting the discovery of the murdered comrade shub'rat 27 reached him ere he liad gained the shelter of the trees. Whither now? Not to his house, for they would search there ; search everywhere for those sur- vivors whose work remained as witness to the exist- ence of some foe. Alone he could have faced the pillagers, secure in his past ; but with the child — the child struggling so madly ? And the last time he had held one in his arms it had lain so still. Oh, Rahmut! Rahmut! mercy of the Most High! Rahm u t ! R ah m u t ! The words fell from his lips in a hoarse whisper as he ran, clinging to the darkest places, conscious of nothing save the one fierce desire to get away to some spot where the child's cries would not be heard — where he would have time to think — some spot where the work had been done already — where nothing remained for lustful hands ! The thought made him double back into the cool watered gardens about the little group of houses beyond the church. The flames were almost out now, and in one roof, only a few sparks lingered on the remaining rafters. Here would be peace ; besides, even if the cries were heard, they might be set down to some wounded thing dreeing its deadly debt of suffering. A minute afterwards he stood in a room, unroofed and reeking yet with the smell of fire, but scarcely disturbed otherwise in its peaceful, orderly arrangements — a room with pictures pasted 28 shub'rat to the walls and faintly visible by the glare, with toys upon the floor, and a swinging cot whence a child had been snatched. This child, perhaps — who knows? Anyhow it cuddled down from Deen Mahomed's arms into the pillows as if they were familiar. "Nanna! Nanna!" it sobbed pitifully. '^HiVao, hiVao^ neendJii argia^' (swing, swing, sleep has come). ^'jSo jao mera butcJicha^^ (sleep my child), replied the old man quietly, as his blood-stained hand began its task. The wonder of such task had j^^-ssed utterly, and had any come to interrupt it he would have given his life calmly for its fulfilment. Why, he did not know. It was Fate. So the old voice, gasping still for breath, settled into a time-honoured lullaby, which has soothed the cradle of most bairns in India, no matter of what race or colour. " Oh ! crow ! Go crow ! Ripe plums are so many. Baby wants to sleep, you know. They're two pounds for a penny." So over and over in a low croon, mechanically he chanted, till the child, losing its fear in the familiar darkness, fell asleep. And then ? In a sort of dull way the question had been in Deen Ma- homed's mind from the beginning without an an- swer, for he had gone so far along the road, simply shub'rIt 29 by following close on the Finger of Fate ; and now there was no possibility of turning back. For woe or weal he had taken the child's part, he had ac- cepted the responsibility for its life, even to the lenorth of death in others. Not that he cared much for the consequences of the swinging blow he had dealt to Rujjub — he was no true man. What then? There was no chance of concealing the child. It slept now, but ere long it would waken again, and cry for " Nanna, Nanna." That must be prevented for a time at any rate. The chubby hands still clasped one of Rahmut's sweeties, and the old man stooped to break off a corner, crumble it up with something he took from an inner pocket, and then place it gently within the child's moist, parted lips, which closed upon it instinctively. He gave a sigh of relief. That was better; that would settle the cries for some hours, and before then he must have made over the child to other hands. Yes, that was it. He must somehow run the gauntlet of his com- rades, and reach the entrenched position which the infidels — curse them ! — had defended against odds such as no man had dreamed of before. It was seven miles to the north, that cantonment which would have been destroyed but for those renegades from the Faith who had stood by their masters, and that handful of British troops which had refused to accept defeat. Seven miles of jungle and open country 30 shub'rat alive with armed and reckless sepoys and sowars, to whom a man in mufti was fair game, no matter what the colour of his race, lay between him and that goal, and Deen Mahomed's grim face grew grimmer as he raised the sleeping child, pillows and all, wrapped them in a quilt, and slung the bundle on his back — slung it carefully so as to give air to the child and freedom to his arms. He might need it if they tried to stop him. He gave a questioning glance at the sky as he came out into the garden where the scent of the orange-blossoms drifted with the lingering spirals of smoke. Not more than an hour or two remained before the dawn would be upon them. He must risk detection, then, by the short cut through the bazaar; better that than the certainty of dis- covery later on in the daylight by those ready for renewed assault upon the entrenchment. ^^Whokhimdar^'' challenged the sentry ceremoni- ously set, as in peaceful times, at the city gate. '''•Allah akhar tva Mahomed rusool^'' replied the old man, without a quiver. That was true ; he was for God and his Prophet when all was said and done. But this was little Rahmut's guest — this. He passed his hand over his forehead in a dazed sort of way. " Ari, look at his /oof," hiccoughed one of a group in the street; "before God he hath more than his share in the bundle. Stop, friend, and pay toll." shub'rat 31 " What my sword hath won my sword keeps," re- torted Deen Mahomed fiercely. " Better for thee in Paradise, Allah Buksh, if thou hadst smitten more and drunk less." " Let be ; let be ! " interrupted another. "'Tis Deen Mahomed, the crazy watchman. I'll go bail, he hath no more than he deserves for this day's work. And he is a devil with that sword of his when he is angry. Lo ! I saw him at the corner, mind you, where the sahibs " But Deen Mahomed had passed from earshot. Passed on and on, through dark streets and light ones, challenged jestingly, or in earnest ; and through it all a growing doggedness, a growing determina- tion came to him to do this thing, yet still remain, as ever, a guardian of the Faith. This for Rahmut's sake, the other for the sake of the Tomb, because he was the dust of tlie footsteps of the saints in light. Out in the open now, with the paling light of dawn behind him and a drunken Hindu trooper riding at him with a cry of '' Mam ! Ram ! " So they dared to give an idolatrous cry, those Hindu dogs whose aid had been sought to throw off the yoke — who would soon find it on their own shoulders. A step back, a mighty slash as the horse sped by, maddened by bit and spur, a stumble, a crash, and an old man, with a strange bundle at his back, was hacking insanely at his prostrate foe. No more, 32 " Rdrn^ Rdrri^'' for him ; that last cry had served as the death-farewell of his race and creed. On again, with a fiercer fire in the eyes, through the great tufts of tiger-grass isolating each poor square of God's earth from the next, and making it impossible to see one's way. On and on swiftly, forcing a path through the swaying stems, whose silvery tasselled spikes above began to glitter in the level beams of the rising sun. Then suddenly, without a word of warning, came an open sandy space, a brief command. " Halt ! " So soon ! It was nearer by a mile than he had expected, and there was no chance of flight ; not unless you made that burden on your back a target for pursuing bullets. A fair mark, in truth, for the half dozen or more of rifles ready in the hands of the cursed infidels. " Who goes there ? " came the challenge in the cursed foreign tongue. He gave one sharp glance towards the picket, and bitter hatred flared up within him ; for there was not even a sahib there who might, perchance, understand. Yet there was no doubt, no doubt at all, even to his confused turmoil of feeling, as to " who came there." A foe ! a foe to the death when this was over ! So with a shout came his creed : '"'•Allah akhar wa 3Iahomed rusool,'" S hub' RAT 33 Then in a sort of gurgle, as he fell forward on his face, it finished in " Been! Been! Been! " ****** " Nicked 'im, by gum ! Nicked the ole beast neat as a ninepin," said one of the picket. '^ Wonder wot he come on for like that?" said another. ^'B y ole Ghazi, that's wot he was," put in a third. " They gets the drink aboard, an' don't care for nothing but religion — rummy start, ain't it? Hello ! wot's that? — a babby, by the Lord ! " For the shock of Deen Mahomed's fall had awak- ened the child. As they drew it from the blanket, the sun tipped over the tiger-grass, and fell on its golden curls. ShuVrdt was over. "I wonder wot 'e were a-goin' to do with it?" remarked the inquirer, turning the dead body over with his foot, and looking thoughtfully at the face, fierce even in death. But no one hazarded a theory, and the Finger of Fate had left no mark on the high, narrow forehead. But the Night of Record was over for it also. IN THE PERMANENT WAY I HEARD this story in a rail-trolly on the Pind- Dadur line, so I always think of it with a running accompaniment; a rhythmic whir of wheels in which, despite its steadiness, you feel the propelling impulse of the unseen coolies behind, then the swift skimming as they set their feet on the trolly for the brief rest which merges at the first hint of lessened speed into the old racing measure. Whir and slide, racing and resting ! — while the wheels spin like bobbins and the brick rubble in the permanent way slips under your feet giddily, until jou could almost fancy yourself sitting on a stationary engine, engaged in winding up an endless red ribbon. A ribbon edged, as if with tinsel, by steel rails stretching away in ever narrowing lines to the level horizon. Stretching straight as a die across a sandy desert, rippled and waved by wrinkled sand hills into the semblance of a sandy sea. And that, from its size, must be a seventh wave. I was just thinking this when the buzz of the brake jarred me through to the marrow of my bones. 34 IN THE PERMANENT WAY 35 " What's up ? A train ? " I asked of my compan- ion who was giving me a lift across his section of the desert. " No ! " he replied laconically. " Now, then ! hurry up, men." Nothing in the wide world comes to pieces in the hand like a trolly. It was dismembered and off the line in a moment ; only however, much to my sur- prise, to be replaced upon the rails some half a dozen yards further along them. I was opening my lips for one question when something I saw at my feet among the brick rubble made me change it for another. * " Hullo I what the dickens is that? " To the carnal eye it was two small squares of smooth stucco, the one with an oval black stone set in it perpendicularly, the other with a round purplish one — curiously ringed with darker circles — set in it horizontally. On the stucco of one were a few dried tidsi ^ leaves and grains of rice ; on the other suspicious-looking splashes of dark red. "What's what?" echoed my friend, climbing up to his seat again. " Why, man, that thing ! — that thing in the per- manent way ! " I replied, nettled at his manner. He gave an odd little laugh, just audible above the first whir of the wheels as we started again. 1 Marjoram. 36 IN THE PERMANENT WAY "That's about it. In the permanent way — con- siderably." He paused, and I thought he was going to relapse into the silence for which he was famous ; but he suddenly seemed to change his mind. " Look here," he said, " it's a fifteen mile run to the first curve, and no trains due, so if you like I'll tell you why we left the track." And he did. * * * * * * When they were aligning this section I was put on to it— preliminary survey work under an R.E. man who wore boiled shirts in the wilderness, and was great on " Departmental Discipline." He is in Simla now, of course. Well, we were driving a straight line through the whole solar system and planting it out with little red flags, when one afternoon, just behind that big wave of a sand hill, we came upon something in the way. It was a man. For further description I should say it was a thin man. There is nothing more to be said. He may have been old, he may have been young, he may have been tall, he may have been short, he may have been halt and maimed, he may have been blind, deaf, or dumb, or any or all of these. The only thing I know for certain is that he was thin. The halassies ^ said he was some kind of a Hindu saint, and they fell at his feet promptly. I shall never forget the R.E.'s face 1 Tent pitchers, ineu employed in measuring land. IN THE PERMANENT WAY 37 as he stood trying to classify the creature accord- ing to Wilson's Hindu Sects^ or his indignation at the kalassies' ignorant worship of a man who, for all they knew, might be a follower of Shiva, while they were bound to Vishnu, or vice versa. He was very learned over the Vaishnavas and the Saivas; and all the time that bronze image with its hands on its knees squatted in the sand staring into space per- fectly unmoved. Perhaps the man saw us, perhaps he didn't. I don't know ; as I said before, he was thin. So after a time we stuck a little red flag in the ground close to the small of his back, and went on our w\ay rejoicing until we came to our camp, a mile further on. It doesn't look like it, but there is a brackish well and a sort of a village away there to the right, and of course we always took advantage of water when we could. It must have been a week later, just as we came to the edge of the sand hills, and could see a land- mark or two, that I noticed the R.E. come up from his prismatic compass looking rather pale. Then he fussed over to me at the plane table. " We're out," he said, " there is a want of Depart- mental Discipline in this party, and we are out." I forget how many fractions he said, but some in- finitesimal curve would have been required to bring us plumb on the next station, and as that would have ruined the R.E.'s professional reputation we 38 IN THE PERMANENT WAY harked back to rectify the error. We found the bronze image still sitting on the sand with its hands on its knees ; but apparently it had shifted its posi- tion some three feet or so to the right, for the flag was fully that distance to the left of it. That night the R.E. came to my tent with his hands full of maps and his mind of suspicions. " It seems incredible," he said, " but I am almost convinced that hyragi or jogi^ or gosain or sungasi, whichever he may be, has had the unparalleled effrontery to move my flag. I can't be sure, but if I were, I would have him arrested on the spot." I suggested he was that already ; but it is some- times difficult to make an R.E. see a Cooper's Hill joke, especially when he is your superior officer. So we did that bit over again. As it happened, my chief was laid up with sun fever when we came to the bronze image, and I had charge of the party- I don't know why, exactly, but it seemed to me rough on the thin man to stick a red flag at the small of his back, as a threat that we meant to annex the only atom of things earthly to which he still clung ; time enough for that when the line was actually under construction. So I told the kalassies to let him do duty as a survey mark ; for, from what I had heard, I knew that once a man of that sort fixes on a place in which to gain immortality by penance, he sticks to it till the mortality, at any rate, comes IN THE PERMANENT WAY 39 to an end. And this one, I found out from the villagers, had been there for ten years. Of course they said he never ate, or drank, or moved, but that, equally of course, was absurd. A year after this I came along again in charge of a construction party, with an overseer called Crad- dock, a big yellow-headed Saxon who couldn't kee^) off the drink, and who had in consequence been going down steadily in one department or another for years. As good a fellow as ever stepped when he was sober. Well, we came right on the thin one again, plump in the very middle of the permanent way. We dug round him and levelled up to him for some time, and then one day Craddock gave a nod at me and walked over to where that image squatted staring into space. I can see the two now, Craddock in his navvy's dress, his blue eyes keen yet kind in the red face shaded by the dirty pith hat, and the thin man without a rag of any sort to hide his bronze anatomy. " Look here, sonny," said Craddock, stooping over the other, "you're in the way — in the permanent way." Then he just lifted him right up, gently, as if he had been a child, and set him down about four feet to the left. It was to be a metre gauge, so that was enough for safety. There he sat after we had propped him up again with his hyraga or cleft stick 40 IN THE PERMANENT WAY under the left arm, as if he were quite satisfied with the change. But next day he was in the old place. It was no use arguing with him. The only thing to be done was to move him out of the way when we wanted it. Of course when the earthwork was fin- ished there was the plate-laying and ballasting and what not to be done, so it came to be part of the big Saxon's regular business to say in his Oxfordshire drawl : " Sonny, yo're in the waiy — in the permanent waiy." Craddock, it must be mentioned, was in a pecul- iarly sober, virtuous mood, owing, no doubt, to the desolation of the desert; in which, by the way, I found him quite a godsend as a companion, for when he was on the talk the quaintness of his ideas was infinitely amusing, and his knowledge of the natives, picked up as a loafer in mau}^ a bazaar and serai, was surprisingly wide, if appallingly inaccurate. " There is something, savin' yo'r presence, sir, blamed wrong in the whole blamed business," he said to me, with a mild remonstrance in his blue eyes, one evening after he had removed the obstruc- tion to progress. " That pore fellar, sir, 'e's a medi- tatin' on the word Horn — Hommipiiddenhoyne ^ it is, sir, I've bin told — an' doin' 'is little level to make the spiritooal man subdoo 'is fleshly hinstinckts. 1 Om mipudmi houm. The Buddhist invocation. IN THE PERMANENT WAY 41 And I, Nathaniel James Craddock, so called in Holy Baptism, I do assure you, a-eatin' and a-drinkin' 'earty, catches 'im right up like a babby, and sets 'im on one side, as if I was born to it. And so I will — an' willin', too — so as to keep 'im from 'arm's way ; for 'eathin or Christian, sir, 'e's an eggsample to the spiritooal part of me which, savin' your presence, sir, is most ways drink." Poor Craddock ! He went on the spree hopelessly the day after we returned to civilisation, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I succeeded in get- ting him a trial as driver to the material train which commenced running up and down the section. The first time I went with it on business I had an inspec- tion carriage tacked on behind the truck loads of coolies and ballast, so that I could not make out why on earth we let loose a danger whistle and slowed down to full stop in the very middle of the desert until I jumped down and ran forward. Even then I was only in time to see Craddock coming back to his engine with a redder face than ever. " It's only old Meditations, sir," he said apologeti- cally, as I climbed in beside him. " It don't take a minute ; no longer nor a cow, and them's in the reg'- lations. You see, sir, I wouldn't 'ave 'arm come to the pore soul afore 'is spiritooal nater 'ad the straight tip hoam. Neither would none of us, sir, coolie nor driver, sir, on the section. We all likes old Eommi- 42 IN THE PERMANENT WAY puddenhome, 'e sticks to it so stiddy, that's where it is." '' Do you mean to say that you always have to get out and lift him off the line ? " I asked, wondering rather at the patience required for the task. "That's so, sir," he replied slowly, in the same apologetic tones. "It don't take no time you see, sir, that's where it is. P'r'aps you may 'ave thought, like as I did first time, that 'e 'd save 'is bacon when the engine come along. Lordy ! the cold sweat broke out on me that time. I brought 'er up, sir, with the buffers at the back of 'is 'ed like them things the photographers jiminy you straight with. But 'e ain't that sort, ain't Meditations." Here Craddock asked leave to light his pipe, and in the interval I looked ahead along the narrowing red ribbon with its tinsel edge, thinking how odd it must have been to see it barred by that bronze image. " No ! that ain't his sort," continued Craddock meditatively, " though wot 'is sort may be, sir, is not my part to say. I've ar'st, and ar'st, and ar'st them pundits, but there ain't one of them can really tell, sir, 'cos he ain't got any marks about him. You see, sir, it's by their marks, like cattle, as you tell 'em. Some says he worships bloody Shivers'^ — 'im 'oos wife you know, sir, they calls Martha Davy ^ — a Christian sort o' name, ain't it, sir, for a 'eathin idol ? 1 Shiva. ^ Mata devi. IN THE PERMANENT WAY 43 — and some says 'e worships Wlslinyou Lueksmi ^ an' that lot, an' Holy ^ too, though, savin' your presence, sir, it ain't much holiness I see at them times, but mostly drink. It makes me feel quite 'omesick, I do assure you, sir, more as if they was humans like me, likewise." " And which belief do you incline to ? " I asked, for the sake of prolonging the conversation. He drew his rough hand over his corn-coloured beard, and quite a grave look came to the blue eyes. " I inclines to Shiver^'' he said decisively, " and I'll tell you why, sir. Shiver s bloody ; but 'e's dead on death. They calls 'im the Destroyer. 'E don't care a damn for the body ; 'e's all for the spiritooal nater, like old Meditations there. Now Wishnyou Lueksmi an' that lot is the Preservers. They eats an' drinks 'earty, like me. So it stands to reason, sir, don't it? that 'e's a Shiver^ and I'm a Wishnyou Lueksmi^ He stood up under pretence of giving a wipe round a valve with the oily rag he held, and looked out to the horizon where the sun was setting, like a huge red signal right on the narrowing line. " So," he went on after a pause, " that's why I wouldn't 'ave 'arm come to old Meditations. 'E's a Shivei\ I'm a Wishnyou Lueksmi. That's what Jam." His meaning was quite clear, and I am not ashamed to say that it touched me. 1 Vishnu Lukshmi. ^ ffoU, the Indian Saturnalia. 44 IN THE PERMANENT WAY " Look here," I said, " take care you don't run over that old chap some day when you are drunk, that's all." He bent over another valve, burnishing it. " I hope to God I don't," he said in a low voice. " That'd about finish me altogether, I expect." We returned the next morning before daybreak ; but I went on the engine, being determined to see how that bronze image looked on the permanent way when you were steaming up to it. "You ketch sight of 'im clear this side," said Craddock, " a good two mile or more ; ef you had a telescope ten for that matter. It ain't so easy t'other side with the sun a-shining bang inter the eyes. And there ain't no big wave as a signal over there. But Lordy ! there ain't no fear of my missin' old Meditations." Certainly, none that morning. He showed clear, first against the rosy flush of dawn, afterwards like a dark stain on the red ribbon. " I'll run up close to him to-day, sir," said Crad- dock, " so as you shall see wot 'e's made of." The whistle rang shrill over the desert of sand, which lay empty of all save that streak of red with the dark stain upon it; but the stain never moved, never stirred, though the snorting demon from the west came racing up to it full speed. " Have a care, man ! Have a care ! " I shouted ; but my words were almost lost in the jar of the IN THE PERMANENT WAY 45 brake put on to the utmost. Even then I could only crane round the cab with my eyes fixed on that bronze image straight ahead of us. Could we stop in time — would it move ? Yes ! no I j^es ! Slower and slower — how many turns of the fly- wheel to so many yards? — I felt as if I were working the sum frantically in my head, when, with a little backward shiver, the great circle of steel stopped dead, and Craddock's voice came in cheerful triumph. » There ! didn't I tell you, sir ? Ain't 'e stiddy ? Ain't 'e a-subdooin' of mortality beautiful ? " The next instant he was out, and as he stooped to his task he flung me back a look. " Now, sonny, you'll 'ave to move. You're in the way — the permanent way, my dear." That was the last I saw of him for some time, for I fell sick and went home. When I returned to work I found, much to my surprise, that Crad- dock was in the same appointment ; in fact, he had been promoted to drive the solitary passenger train which now ran daily across the desert. He had not been on the spree once, I was told; indeed, the R.E., who was of the Methodist division of that gallant regiment, took great pride in a reformation which, he informed me, was largely due to his religious teaching combined with Departmental Discipline. 46 IN THE PERMANENT WAY " And how is Meditations ? " I asked, when the great rough hand had shaken mine veliemently. Craddock's face seemed to me to grow redder than ever. " 'E's very well, sir, thanking you kindly. There's a native driver on the Goods now. 'E's a Shiver- Martha Davy lot, so I pays 'im live rupee a month to nip out sharp with the stoker an' shovel 'is old saint to one side. I'm gettin' good pay now, you know, sir." I told him there was no reason to apologise for the fact, and that I hoped it might long continue ; whereat he gave a sheepish kind of laugh, and said he hoped so too. Christmas came and went uneventfully without an outbreak, and I could not refrain from congratulat- ing Craddock on one temptation safely over. He smiled broadly. "Lor' bless you, sir," he said, "you didn't never think, did you, that Nathaniel James Craddock, which his name was given to 'im in Holy Baptism, I do assure you, was going to knuckle down that way to old Hommipuddenhome ? 'Twouldn't be fair on Christmas noways, sir, and though I don't set the store 'e does on 'is spiritooal nater, I was born and bred in a Christyan country, I do assure you." I congratulated him warmly on his sentiments, and hoped again that the}^ would last; to which he replied as before that he hoped so too. IN THE PERMANENT WAY 47 And then Holi time came round, and, as luck would have it, the place was full of riff-raff low whites going on to look for work in a further sec- tion. I had to drive through the bazaar on my way to the railway station and it beat anything I had ever seen in various vice. East and West were outbidding each other in iniquity, and to make matters worse an electrical dust-storm was blow- ing hard. You never saw such a scene ; it was pandemonium, background and all. I thought I caught a glimpse of a corn-coloured beard and a pair of blue eyes in a wooden balcony among tink- ling mtdras and jasmine chaplets, but I wasn't sure. However, as I was stepping into the inspection carriage which, as usual, was the last in the train, I saw Craddock crossing the platform to his engine. His white coat was all splashed with the red dye they had been throwing at each other, Holi fashion, in the bazaar ; his walk, to my eyes, had a lilt in it, and finally, the neck of a black bottle showed from one pocket. Obedient to one of those sudden impulses which come, heaven knows why, I took my foot off the step and followed him to the engine. "Comin' aboard, sir," he said quite collectedly. " You'd be better be'ind to-night, for it's blowin' grit fit to make me a walkin' sandpaper inside and out." And before I could stop him the black bottle 48 IN THE PERMANENT WAY was at his mouth. This decided me. Perhaps my face showed my thoughts, for as I climbed into the cab he gave an uneasy laugh. *' Don't be afraid, sir : it's black as pitch, but I knows where old Meditation comes by instinck, I do assure you. One hour an' seventeen minutes from the distance signal with pressure as it oughter be. Hillo ! there's the whistle and the baboo a-waving. Off we goes ! " As we flashed past a red light I looked at my watch. " Don't you be afraid, sir," he said, again looking at his. " It's ten to ten now, and in one hour an' seventeen minutes on goes the brake. That's the ticket for Shivers and Martha Davy ; though I am a Wishnyou Lucksmi,^'' He paused a moment, and as he stood put his hand on a stanchion to steady himself. " Very much of a Wishnyou Lucksiyii^'' he went on with a shake of the head. "I've 'ad a drop too much and I know it; but it ain't fair on a fellar like me, 'aving so many names to them, when they're all the same — a eatin' an' drinkin' lot like me. There's Christen ^ — you'd 'ave thought he'd 'ave been a decent chap by 'is name, but 'e went on orful with them Gopis — that's Hindu for milk- maids, sir. And Harry ^ — well, he wasn't no bet- 1 Kristna. ^ Hari. IN THE PERMANENT WAY 49 ter than some other Harrys I've heard on. And Canyer,! I expect he could just about. To say nothin' of G-opi-nauglity ; ^ and naughty he were, as no doubt you've heard tell, sir. There's too many on them for a pore fellar who don't set store by 'is spiritooal nater ; especially when they mixes them- selves up with Angcore^ whisky, an' ginger ale." His blue eyes had a far-away look in them, and his words were fast losing independence, but I understood what he meant perfectly. In that brief glimpse of the big bazaar I had seen the rows of Western bottles standing cheek by jowl with the bowls of dolee dye, the sour curds and sweetmeats of Holi-iidiQ. "You had better sit down, Craddock," I said severely, for I saw that the fresh air was having its usual effect. " Perhaps if you sleep a bit you'll be more fit for work. I'll look out and wake you when you're wanted." He gave a silly laugh, let go the stanchion, and drew out his watch. " Don't you be afraid, sir ! One hour and seven- teen minutes from the distance signal. I'll keep 'im out o' 'arm's way, an' willing to the end of the chapter." 1 Kaniya. 2 Gopi-nath. These are all names of Vishnu in his various Avatars. 3 Encore. 50 IN THE PERMANENT WAY He gave a lurch forward to the seat, stumbled, and the watch dropped from his hand. For a moment I thought he might go overboard, and I clutched at him frantically; but with another lurch and an indistinct admonition to me not to be afraid, he sank into the corner of the bench and was asleep in a second. Then I stooped to pick up the watch, and, rather to my surprise, found it uninjured and still going. Craddock's words, " ten minutes to ten," recurred to me. Then it would be twenty-seven minutes past eleven before he was wanted. I sat down to wait, bidding the native stoker keep up the fire as usual. The wind was simply shrieking round us, and the sand drifted thick on Craddock's still, upturned face. More than once I wiped it off, feeling he might suffocate. It was the noisiest, and at the same time the most silent, journey I ever undertook. Pandemonium, with seventy times seven of its devils let loose outside the cab; inside Crad- dock asleep, or dead — he might have been the latter from his stillness. It became oppressive after a time, as I remembered that other still figure, miles down the track, which was so strangely bound to this one beside me. The minutes seemed hours, and I felt a distinct relief when the watch, which I had held in my hand most of the time, told me it was seventeen minutes past eleven. IN THE PERMANENT WAY 51 Only ten minutes before the brake should be put on; and Craddock would require all that time to get his senses about him. I might as well have tried to awaken a corpse, and it was three minutes to the twenty-seven when I gave up the idea as hopeless. Not that it mat- tered, since I could drive an engine as well as he ; still the sense of responsibility weighed heavily upon me. My hand on the brake valve trembled visibly as I stood watching the minute hand of the watch. Thirty seconds before the time I put the brake on hard, determining to be on the safe side. And then when I had taken this precaution a per- fectly unreasoning anxiety seized on me. I stepped on to the footboard and craned forward into the darkness which, even without the wind and the driving dust, was blinding. The lights in front shot slantways, showing an angle of red ballast, barred by gleaming steel ; beyond that a formless void of sand. But the centre of the permanent way, where that figure would be sitting, was dark as death itself. What a fool I was, when the great circle of the fly-wheel was slackening, slack- ening, every second ! And yet the fear grew lest I should have been too late, lest I should have made some mistake. To appease my own folly I drew out my watch in confirmation of the time. Great God ! a difference of two minutes ! — two 52 IN THE PERMANENT WAY whole minutes ! — yet the watches had been the same at the distance signal ? — the fall, of course ! the fall ! ! I seemed unable to do anything but watch that slackening wheel, even though I became conscious of a hand on my shoulder, of some one standing beside me on the footboard. No ! not standing, swaying, lurching "Don't!" I cried. " Don't ! it's madness ! " But that some one was out in the darkness. Then I saw a big white figure dash across the angle of light with outspread arms. " Now then, sonny ! yo're in the way — the per- manent way." ****** The inspector paused, and I seemed to come back to the sliding whir of the trolly wheels. In the distance a semaphore was dropping its red arm and a pointsman, like a speck on the ribbon, was at work shunting us into a siding. "Well?" I asked. " There isn't anything more. When a whole train goes over two men who are locked in each other's arms it is hard — hard to tell — well, which is Shivers Martha Davy^ and which is Wishnyou Lucksmi. It was right out in the desert in the hot weather, no parsons or people to object; so 1 buried them there in the permanent way." IN THE PERMANENT WAY 53 " And those are tombstones, I suppose ? " He laughed. " No ; altars. The native employes put them up to their saint. The oval black up- right stone is Shiva, the Destroyer's ling am ; those splashes are blood. The flat one, decorated with flowers, is the salagrama^'^ sacred to Vishnu the Preserver. You see nobody really knew whether old Meditations was a Saiva or a Vaishnava ; so I suggested this arrangement as the men were making a sectarian quarrel out of the question." He paused again and added: " You see it does for both of them." The jar of the points prevented me from replying. 1 A fossil ammonite. ON THE SECOND STORY It was a three-storied house in reality, though time had given it the semblance of a fourth in the mud platform which led up to its only entrance. For the passing feet of generations had worn down the levels of the alley outside, and the toiling hands of generations had added to the level of the rooms within, until those who wished to pass from one to the other had to climb the connecting steps ere they could reach the door. The door itself was broad as it was high, and had a strangely deformed look ; since nearly half of its two carven stone jambs were, of necessity, hidden behind the platform. These stone jambs, square-hewn, roughly-carven, were the only sign of antiquity visible in the house from the alley; the rest being the usual straight-up-and-down almost windowless wall built of small purplish bricks set in a mortar of mud. It stood, however, a little further back in the alley than its neighbours, so giving room for the mud platform; but that was its only distinction. 54 ON THE SECOND STORY 55 The alley in its turn differed in no way from the generality of such alleys in the walled towns where the houses — like trees in a crowded planta- tion — shoot up shoulder to shoulder, as if trying to escape skywards from the yeai-ly increasing press- ure of humanity. It was, hriefly, a deep, dark, irreg- ular drain of a phxce, shadowful utterly save for the one brief half hour or so during Avhich the sun showed in the notched ribbon of the sky wliich was visible between the uneven turretings of the roof. Yet the very sunlessness and airlessness had its advantages. In hot weather it brought relief from the scorching glare, and in the cold, such air as there was remained warm even beneath a frosty sky. So that the mud platform, with its possibili- ties of unhustled rest, was a favourite gossiping place of the neighbourhood. All the more so be- cause, between it and the next house, diving down through the dehris of countless generations and green with the slime of countless ages, lay one of those wells to which the natives cling so fondly in defiance of modern sanitation and w^ater-works. But there was a third reason why the platform was so much frequented; on the second story of the house to which it belonged stood the oldest Hindu shrine in the city. How it came to be there no one could say clearly. The Brahmins who tended it from the lower story told tales of a 56 ON THE SECOND STORY plinthed temple built in the heroic age of Prithi Raj ; but only this much was certain, that it was very old, and that the steep stone ladder of a stair which led up to the arched alcoves of the ante-shrine was of very different date to the ordi- nary brick one which led thence to the third story ; where, among other lodgers, Ramanund, B.A., lived with his widowed mother. He was a mathematical master in a mission school, and twice a day on his way to and from the exact sciences he had to pass up and down the brick ladder and the stone stair. And some- times he had to stand aside on the three-cornered landing where the brick and stone met, in order that the women coming to worship might pass with their platters of curds, their trays of cressets, and chaplets of flowers into the dim ante-shrine where the liglit from a stone lattice glistened faintly on the damp oil-smeared pavement. But that being necessarily when he was on his way downstairs, and deep in preparation for the day's work, he did not mind a minute or so of delay for further study; and he would go on with his elementary treatise on logarithms until the tinkle of the ank- lets merged into the giggle which generally fol- lowed, when in the comparative - seclusion of the ante-shrine, the veils could be lifted for a peep at the handsome young man. But Ramanund, al- ON THE SECOND STORY 57 belt a lineal descendant of the original Brahmin priests of the temple, had read Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill ; so he would go on his way careless alike of the unseen women and the unseen shrine — of the mysteries of sex and religion as presented in his natural environment. There are dozens of young men in India now-a-days in this position ; who stand figuratively, as he did actually, giving the go-by to one-half of life alternately, and letting the cressets and the chaplets and the unseen women pass unchallenged into the alcove, where the speckled light of the lattice bejewelled their gay garments, and a blue cloud of incense floated sideways among the dim arches. And Ramanund was as good a specimen of this new India as could be found. North or South. Not of robust physique — that was scarcely to be expected after generations of in and in breeding — but of most acute intelligence, and, by virtue of inherited spiritual distinction, singularly free from the sensual, passive acquiescence in the limitations of life which brings content to the most of humanity. He was, by birth, as it were, a specialised specula- tive machine working at full pressure with a pure virtue escapement. As President of a Debating Club affiliated with the "Society for the General Improvement of the People of India," he was perhaps needlessly lavish of vague expressions such 58 ON THE SECOND STORY as the individual rights of man ; but then he, in common with his kind, have only lately become acquainted with the ideas such phrases are sup- posed to express, and have not as yet learnt their exact use — that being an art which history tells needs centuries of national and individual struggle for its attainment. Be tliat as it may, even in the strict atmosphere of the Mission School, Ramanund's only fault was that he had assimilated its morality and rejected its dogma. In the orthodox Hindu household upstairs, over which his widowed mother ruled severely, his only crime was that he refused to replace a wife, deceased of the measles at the age of six, for another of the good lady's choosing. For that other matter of slighting the shrine downstairs is too common now-a-days in India to excite any re- crimination ; its only effect being to make the women regard the rule which forbids their eating with the men folks, as a patent of purity, instead of a sign of inferiority ; since it is a safeguard against contamination from those who, when be- 3^ond the watch of secluded eyes, may have defiled themselves in a thousand Western ways. Regarding the wife, however, Ramanund was firm, despite the prayers that his mother offered before the Goddess downstairs for his deliverance from obstinacy. He used to accompany her some- ON THE SECOND STORY 59 times on this errand so far as the three-cornered landing, and then with a smile proceed on his way to the exact sciences. Even the clang of the great bell wliich hung in front of the idol within tip-toe touch of the worshipper, as it used to come pealing after him down the stairs, proclaiming that the goddess' attention had been called to a new peti- tioner, did not bring a comprehension of facts to his singularly clear brain. Those facts being, that, rightly or wrongly, the flamboyant image of Kali cievi 1 — which his ancestors had tended faithfully — was being besieged by as fervent a mother-prayer as had been laid before any divinity — or dev-m\iy as the word really stands. In truth Ramanund had no special desire to marry at all ; or even to fall in love. He was too busy with the exact sciences to experimentalise on the sus- pension of the critical faculty in man; besides, he had definitely made up his mind to marry a widow when he did marry. For he was as great on the widow question as he was on all others which appealed to his kindly moral nature. He and his friends of the same stamp — pleaders, clerks, and such-like living in the alley — used to sit on the mud steps after working hours, and discuss such topics before adjourning to the Debating Club; but they always left one of the flights of steps free. This was Goddess. 60 ON THE SECOND STORY for the worshippers to pass upwards to the shrine as soon as the blare of the conches, the beatings of drums, and the ringing of bells should announce that the dread Goddess having been washed and put to bed like a good little girl, her bath water was available to those who wished to drink it as a charm against the powers of darkness. That was with the waning light ; but as it was a charm also against the dangers of day, the dawn in its turn would be disturbed by clashings and bray- ings to tell of Kali devi's uprisal. Then, in the growing light the house-mothers, fresh from their grindstones, would come shuffling through the alleys with a pinch or two of new-ground flour, and the neighbouring Brahmins — hurriedly devotional after the manner of priesthoods — would speed up the stair (muttering prayers as they sped) to join for half a minute in the sevenfold circling of the sacred lamps ; while, divided between sleep and greed, the fat traders on their way to their shops would begin business by a bid for divine favour, and yawn peti- tions as they waddled, that the supply of holy water would hold out till they arrived at the shrine. But at this time in the morning, Ramanund would be sleeping the sleep of the just upstairs, after sitting up past midnight over his pupils' exercises ; for one of the first effects of civilisation is to make men prefer a kerosene lamp to the sun. ON THE SECOND STORY 61 Now, one September when the rains, coming late and ceasing early, had turned the pestilential drain in the city into a patent germ propagator, the worship- pers at Kali clevis shrine were more numerous than ever. Indeed, one or two half-hearted free-thinker hangers-on to the fringe of Progress and Debating Clubs began to hedge cautiously by allowing their women folk to make offerings in their names ; since when cholera is choosing its victims haphazard up and down the alleys, it is as well to ensure your life in every office that will accept you as a client. Ramanund, of course, and his immediate friends were above such mean trucklings. They exerted themselves to keep the alley clean, they actually subscribed to pay an extra sweeper, they distributed cholera pills and the very soundest advice to their neighbours; especially to those who persisted in using the old well. Ramanund, indeed, went so far as to circulate a pamphlet, imploring those who, from mistaken religious scruples, would not drink from the hydrants to filter their water ; in support of which thesis he quoted learned Sanskrit texts. " J«z Kali ma!'''^ said the populace to each other, when they read it. " Such talk is pure blasphemy. If She wishes blood shall She not drink it? Our fathers messed not with filters. Such things bring Her wrath on the righteous; even as now in this sickness." 1 Victory to Mother Kali ! 62 ON THE SECOND STORY Yet they spoke calmly, acquiescing in the inevi- table from their side of the question, just as Rama- nund and his like did from theirs ; for this passivity is characteristic of the race — which yet needs only a casual match to make it flare into fanaticism. So time passed until one day, the moon being at the full, and the alley lying mysterious utterly by reason of the white shining of its turreted roofs set, as it were, upon the solid darkness of the narrow lane below, a new voice broke in on the reading of a paper regarding the " Sanitation of the Vedic Ages," which Ramanund was declaiming to some chosen friends. " Jai Kali maT^ said this voice also, but the tone was different, and the words rang fiercely. "Is Her arm shortened that it cannot save? Is it straightened that it cannot slay? Wait, ye fools, till the dark moon brings Her night and ye shall see." It came from a man with an evil hemp-sodden face, and a body naked save for a saffron-coloured rag, who, smeared from head to foot with cowdung ashes, was squatting on the threshold, daubing it with cowdung and water; for the evening worship- pers had passed, and he was at work betimes purifying the sacred spot against the morrow's festival. The listeners turned with a start, to look at the ON THE SECOND STORY 63 strange yet familiar figure, and Ramanand, cut short in his eloquence, frowned ; but he resumed his paper, which was in English, without a pause, being quick to do battle in words after the manner of New India. " These men, base pretenders to the holiness of the sumiydsi^ are the curse of the country ! Mean tricksters and rogues wandering like locusts through the land to prey on the timid fears of our modest countrywomen. Men who outrage the common sense in a thousand methods; who " The man behind liim laughed shortly, '' Curse on, master yee.^" he said — "for curses they are by the sound, though I know not the tongue for sure. Yea! curse if thou likest, and praise the new wis- dom ; yet thou — Ramanund, Brahmin, son of those who tend Her — hast not forgotten the old. Forget it! How can a man forget what he learnt in his mother's womb, what he hath learnt in his second birth?" Long years after prayer has passed from a man's life, the sound of the " Our Father" may bring him back in thought to his mother's knee. So it was with Ramanund, as in the silence which followed, he watched (by the flickering light of the cresset set on the ground between them) his adversary's lips moving in the secret verse which none but the twice-born may repeat. It brought back to him, as if it had been yesterday, the time when, half- 64 ON THE SECOND STORY frightened, half-important, he had heard it whispered in his ear for the first time. When for the first time also he had felt the encircling thread of the twice-born castes on his soft young body. That thread which girdled him from the common herd, which happed and wrapped him round with a righteousness not his own, but imputed to him by divine law. Despite logarithms, despite pure moral- ity, something thrilled in him half in exultation, half in fear. It was unforgetable, and yet, in a way, he had forgotten ! — forgotten what ? The question was troublesome, so he gave it the go-by quickly. " I have not forgotten the old wisdom jogi y^e," he said. " I hold more of it than thou, with all thy trickery. But remember this. We of the Sacred Land^ will not stand down-country cheating, and if thou art caught at it here, 'tis the lock-up." " If I am caught," echoed the man as he drew a small earthen pot closer to him and began to stir its contents with his hand, every now and again testing their consistency by letting a few drops fall from his lifted fingers back into the pot. They were thick and red, showing in the dim light like blood. "It is not we, servants of dread Kali, who are caught, 'tis ye faithless ones who have wan- dered from Her. Ye who pretend to know " " A scoundrel when we see one," broke in the ^ The first Aryan settlements were in the Punjab. ON THE SECOND STORY 65 schoolmaster, his high thin tones rising. "And I do know one at least. What is more, I will have thee watched by the police." "Don't," put in one of the others in English. "What use to rouse anger needlessly. Such men are dangerous." " Dangerous ! " echoed Ramanund. " Their day is past " " The people believe in them still," persisted an- other, looking uneasily at the jogi's scowl, which, in truth, was not pleasant. " And such language is, in my poor opinion, de- scriptive of that calculated to cause a breach of peace," remarked a rotund little pleader, " thus con- trary to mores publico. In moderation lies safety." " And cowardice," retorted Ramanund, returning purposely to Hindustani and keeping his eager face full on the jogi. " It is because the people, illiter- ate and ignorant, believe in them, that I advocate resistance. Let us purge the old, pure faith of our fathers from the defilements which have crept in ! Let us, by the light of new wisdom revealing the old, sweep from our land the nameless horrors which deface it. Let us teach our illiterate brothers and sisters to treat these priests of Kali as they deserve, and to cease worshipping that outrage on the very name of womanhood upstairs — that devil drunk with blood, unsexed, obscene " 6^ ON THE SECOND STORY He was proceeding after his wont, stringing ad- jectives on a single thread of meaning, when a triumphant yell startled him into a pause. " Jai Kali ma ! Jai Kali ma ! " It seemed to fill the alley with harsh echoes blending into a guttural cruel laugh. ''So be it, brother ! Let it be Kali, the Eternal Woman, against thee, Ramanund the Scholar! I tell thee She will stretch out Her left hand so '' here his own left hand, reddened with the pigment he had been preparing for the purpose, printed itself upon one lintel of the door, " and Her right hand so " here his right did the same for the other lintel, and he paused, obviously to give effect to the situa- tion. Indeed his manner throughout had been in- tensely theatrical, and this deft blending of the ordinary process of marking the threshold, with a mysterious threat suitable to the occasion, betrayed the habitual trafficker in superstitious fear. " And then, J6(ji jee^'' sneered Ramanund imper- turbably. " And then, master jee ? " cried his adversary, his anger growing at his own impotence to impress, as he clenched his reddened hands and stooped for- ward to bring his scowl closer to the calm con- tempt, "Why then She will draw fools to Her bosom, bloody though they deem it." "And if they will not be drawn?" ON THE SECOND STORY 67 The words scarcely disturbed the stillness of the alley, which was deserted save for that strange group, outlined by the flicker of the cresset. On the one side, backed b}^ the cavernous darkness of the low, wide door, was the naked savage-looking figure, with its hands dripping still in heavy red drops, stretched out in menace over the lamp. On the other was Ramanund, backed by his friends, decent, civilised, in their western-cut white clothing. " Damn you — you — you brute ! " The schoolmaster seldom swore ; when lie did he used English oaths. Possibl}^ because they seemed more alien to his own virtue. On this occasion several came fluently as he fumbled for his pocket handkerchief ; for the jogi in ansAver to his taunt had reached out one of his red hands and drawn three curving fingers down the centre of Ramanund's immaculate forehead. The emblem of his discarded faith, the bloody trident of Siva, showed there dis- tinctly ere the modern hemstitclied handkerchief wiped it away petulantly. It was gone in a second, yet Ramanund even as he assured liimself of the fact by persistent rubbing felt that it had somehow sunk more than skin deep. The knowledge made him swear the harder, and struggle vehemently against his comrade's restraining hands. " It is a case for police and binding over to keep peace," protested the pleader soothingly. '' I will 68 ON THE SECOND STORY conduct same even on appeals to highest court with- out further charge." " In addition, it is infra dig to disciples of the law and order thus to behave as the illiterate," put in another, while a third, with less theory and more practice, remarked that to use violence to a priest of Kali on the threshold of Her temple during Her sacred month was as much as their lives were worth; since God only knew how many a silent believer within earshot needed but one cry to come to the rescue of Her servant, especially now when the sickness was making men sensitive to Her honour. So, in the end, outraged civilisation contented itself by laying a formal charge of assault in the neighbouring police station against a certain religious mendicant, name unknown, supposed to have come from Benares, who in the public thoroughfare had infringed the liberty of one of Her Imperial Majesty's liege subjects by imprinting the symbol of a decadent faith on his forehead. And thereinafter it repaired to the Debating Club, where Ramanund recovered his self-respect in a more than usually per-fervid out- burst of eloquence. So fervid, indeed, that one of the most forward lights in the province, who hap- pened to look in, swore eternal friendship on the spot. The result being that the two young men discussed every burning question under the sun, ON THE SECOND STORY 69 as, with arms interclasped, Ramanuiicl saw his new acquaintance home to his lodgings. Thus it was past midnight ere he returned to his own, and then he was so excited, so intoxicated, as it were, by his own strong words, that he strode down the narrow alley as if he were marching to victory. And yet the alley itself was peace personified. It was dark no longer, for the great silver shield of the moon hung on the notched ribbon of pale sky be- tween the roofs, and its light — with the nameless message of peace which seems inherent in it — lay thick and white down to the very pavement. There was scarcely a shadow anywhere save the odd fore- shortened image of himself which kept pace behind Ramanund's swift steps like a demon driving him to his doom. The low, wide door, however, showed like a cavern, and the narrow stone stair struck chill after the heat outside. Perhaps that was why the young man shivered as he groped his way up- wards amid the lingering scent of past incense, the perfume of fallen flowers, and the faint odour suggestive of the gay garments which had flut- tered past not so long before. Or, perhaps, the twin passions of Love and Worship, which even Logarithms cannot destroy, were roused in him by the memory of these things. Whatever it was, something made him pause to hold his breath and 70 ON THE SECOND STORY listen on that three-cornered landing where the brick and the stone met. A speckled bar of moonlight glistened on the damp floor of the ante-shrine and showed a dim arch or two — then darkness. And all around him was that penetrat- ing odour telling of things unseen, almost un- known, and yet strangely familiar to his inherited body and soul. There was not a sound. That was as it should be when gods slept like men. When gods slept . . . ! There was a sound now — the sound of his own contemptuous laugh as he remembered his defiance of such divinities — the sound of his own steps as he passed suddenly, impulsively, into the ante- shrine, feeling it was time for such as he to wor- ship while She slept, helpless as humanity itself. It was almost dark in the low-arched corridors with their massive pillars surrounding the central chamber on all sides. But there, in the Holy of Holies, two smoking swinging lamps threw a yel- low glare on the carved stone canopy wliich reached up into the shadows of the vaulted roof. And by their light the hideous figure of the idol could be half-seen, half-imagined, through the fretted panels of the iron doors fast-locked on Her sleep; fretted panels giving glimpses, no more, of flamboyant arms crimson as blood, and ON THE SECOND STORY 71 hung with faded flowers. Blood and flowers, blood and flowers, blending strangely with that lingering perfume of Womanhood and Worship with which the air was heavy. Hark ! what was that ? A step ? Impossible, surely, at that hour of the night when even gods sleep ! And yet lie drew back hastily into the further shadows, forgetful of everything save sheer annoyance at the chance of being discovered in Kali's shrine. He of all men in the city ! Yes ! it was a step in the ante-shrine. A light step ; and there emerging from the darkness of the corridors was a figure. A woman's figure — or was it a child's ? — draped from head to foot in white. Ramanund felt a throb of philanthropic pity thrill through heart and brain even in his relief; for this was some poor widow, no doubt, come on the sly to offer her ill-omened^ prayers, and though he might rely on her rapt devotion allowing him to steal round the corridors unob- served, the thought of the reason why she had come alone filled him with compassion. Partly because he was in truth a kindly soul, partly be- cause he was, as it were, pledged to such com- passion. A widow certainly ; and yet surely little more than a child ! So slender, so small was she that 1 A widow brings ill-luck with her. 72 ON THE SECOND STORY even on tiptoe her outstretched hand could not reach the clapper of the big bell which hung above her head. Once, twice, thrice, she tried; standing full in the flare of the lamp, her veil falling back from the dark head, close-cropped like a boy's, and roughened almost into curls. Something in the sight made Ramanund hold his breath again as he watched the disappointment grow to the small passionate face. '' She will not listen — She will not hear ! No one ever listens — no one ..." It was not a cry ; it was only a girl's whisper with a note of girlish fear rising above its pain, but it echoed like a reveille to something which had till then been asleep in Ramanund. Not listen ! Was he not there in the dark listening ? Was he not ready to help? — God! how young and slender she was down there on her knees thrusting the chaplets she had brought through the fretwork fiercely . . . ''Mai Kali! Mai! Listen! Listen!" The clear sharp voice rang passionately now, echoing through the arches. "What have I done. Mother, to be accursed? Why didst Thou take him from me — my beautiful young husband — for they tell me he was young and beautiful. And now they say that Thou sendest the other for my lover — thy priest! But I will not. Mother, if they kill me for it. Thou wouldst not give thyself to such as he, Kali, ugly as ON THE SECOND STORY 73 Thou art — and I am pretty. Far prettier than the other girls wlio have husbands. Mai Kali ! listen this once — this once only ! Kill me now when Thou art killing so many and give me a husband in the next life ; or let me go — let me be free — free to choose my own way — my own lover. Mother ! Mother ! if Thou wouldst only wake ! — if Thou wouldst only listen ! — if Thou wouldst only look and see how pretty I am ! " Her voice died away amid that mingled perfume of love and worship, of sex and religion, which seemed to lie heavy on the breath, making it come short. . . . Truly the gods might sleep, but man waked ! There, in the shadow, a man looked and listened till pity and passion set his brain and heart on fire. The girl had risen to her feet again in her last hopeless appeal, and now stood once more looking upwards at the silent bell, her hands, empty of their chaplets, clenched in angry despair, and a world of baffled life and youth in her childish face. " She will not listen ! She will not wake ! " The whisper, with its note of fear in it, ended in a boom- ing clang which forced a vibrating response from the dim arches as Ramanund's nervous hand smote the big bell full and fair. She turned with a low cry, then stood silent till a slow smile came to her face. 74 ON THE SECOND STORY Mai Kali had wakened indeed ! She had listened also, and the lover had come. . . . II The moonlit nights which had so often shown two ghost-like figures amid the shadows of Kali's shrine had given place to dark ones. And now, save for a whisper, there was no sign of life beneath the dim arches, since, as a rule, those two — Raman und and the woman Fate had sent him — shunned the smokj flare of the lamps, and the half-seen watchfulness of that hideous figure within the closed fretwork doors. Yet sometimes little Anunda would insist on their sitting right in the very threshold of the Mother who, she said, would be angry if they distrusted Her. But at other times she would meet her lover, finger to lip, and lead him hastily to the darkest corner lest he should wake the goddess to direful anger at this desecration of Her holy place. Then again, she would laugh recklessly, hang the chaplets she had brought with her round his neck, cense him with sweet matches, and tell him, truthfully, that he was the only god she feared. Altogether, as he sat with his arm round her, Ramanund used often to wonder helplessly if it were not all a dream. If so, it was not the calm controlled dream he had cherished as the love story ON THE SECOND STORY 75 suitable to a professor of mathematics. The heroine of that was to have been wise, perhaps a little sad, and Anunda was — well ! it was difficult to say Avhat she was, save absolutely entrancing in her every mood. She was like a firefly on a dark night flashing here and there brilliantly, lucidly ; yet giv- ing no clue to her own self except this — that she did not match with the exact sciences. Nor, for the matter of that, with the situation ; for there were grave dangers in these nightly assignations. In addition, their surroundings were anything but cheerful, anything but suitable to dreams. Cholera had the whole city in its grip now, and as those two had whispered of Love and Life many a soul, within earshot of a man's raised voice, had passed out of both into the grave. But Anunda never seemed to think of these things. She was the bravest and yet the timidest child alive ; at least so Ramanund used to tell her fondly when she laughed at discovery, and yet trembled at the very idea of marriage. Honestly, she would have been quite satisfied to have him as her lover only, but for the impossibility of keeping him on those terms. An impossibility because — as she told him with tears — she was only on a visit to the Brahmins downstairs and would have to return homewards when the daik month of Kali-worship was over. And here followed one of those tales — scarcely credible to English ears — 7(j ON THE SECOND STORY of the cold-blooded profligacy to whicli widows have to yield as the only means of making their lives bearable. Whereat Ramanund set his teeth and swore he wonld have revenge some da}^ Mean- while it made him all the more determined to save her, and at the same time realise his cherished dream of defying his world by marrying a widow. Yet his boldness only had the effect of making little Anunda more timid and cautious. " What need for names, my lord," she would say evasivel}^ when he pressed her for particulars of her past. " Is it not enough that I am of pure Brahmin race ? Before Kali, my lord need have no fears for that, and I have found favour in my lord's eyes. What, then, are the others to my lord? Let the wicked ones go." "But if people do such things they should be punished by the law," fumed Ramanund, who, even with her arms round him, and a chaplet of chumpak blossom encircling his neck, could not quite forget that he was a schoolmaster. " You forget that we live in a new age, or perhaps you do not know it. That is one of the things I must teach you, sweet- heart, when we are married." The slender bit of a hand which lay in his gave a queer little clasp of denial, and the close-cropped head on his shoulder stirred in a shake of inciedulity. "AVe cannot marry. I am a widow. It would be ON THE SECOND STORY 77 better — SO " and the "so" was made donblj^ elo- quent by the quiver of content with which, yiehling to the pressure of his arm, she nestled closer to him. Ramanund's brain whirled, as she had a knack of making it whirl, but he stuck to his point manfully. "Silly child! Of course we can marry. The law does not forbid it, and that is all we liave to think of. It is legal, and no one has a right to interfere. Besides, as I told you, it is quite easy. To-morrow, the darkest niglit of Kali's month, is our oppor- tunity. Every one will be wearied out by excite- ment" — here his face hardened and his voice rose. " Excitement ! I tell you it is disgraceful that these sacrifices should be permitted. I admit they are nothing here to what they are down country, but we of the Sacred Land should set an example. The law should interfere to stop such demoralis- ing, brutalising scenes. If we, the educated, were only allowed a voice in such matters, if we were not gagged and blindfolded from engaging in the amelioration of our native land " he paused and pulled himself up by bending down to kiss her in Western fashion, whereat she hid her face in quick shame, for modesty is as much a matter of custom as anything else. "But I will teach you all this when we are married. To-morrow, then, in the hour before dawn, when the worshippers will be drunk with wine and blood, you will meet me on 78 ON THE SECOND STORY the landing — not here, child, this will be no sight for you or me then. Ah ! it is horrible even to think of it ; the blood, the needless, reckless " Again he pulled himself up and went on : "I shall have a hired carriage at the end of the alley in which we will drive to the railway station ; and then, Anunda, it will only be two tickets — two railway tickets." " Two railway tickets," echoed Anunda in muffled tones from his shoulder ; " I came up in the rail- way from " She paused, then added quickly : " They put me in a cage, and I cried." " You will not be put in a cage this time," replied Ramanund with a superior smile ; " you will come with me, and we will go to Benares." Her face came up to his this time anxiously. " Benares ? Why Benares ? " " Because good and evil come alike from Benares," he ansAvered exultantly. "Mayhap you have been there, Anunda, and seen the evil, the superstition. But it is in Benares also that the true faith lives still. My friend has written to his friends there, and they will receive us with open arms ; virtuous w^omen will shelter you till the marriage arrange- ments are complete." She shook her head faintly. " We cannot be married — I am a widow," she repeated obstinately; "but I will go with you all the same," Then seeing I ON THE SECOND STORY 79 a certain reproach in his face she frowned. "Dost think I am wicked, my lord? I am not wicked at all ; but Mai Kali gave me a lover, not a hus- band." Here the frown relaxed into a brilliant smile. "My husband is dead, and I do not care for dead men. I care for you, my lord, my god." Ramanund's brain whirled again, but he clung to the first part of her speech as a safeguard. "You are foolish to say we cannot be married. If you read the newspapers you would see that Avidows — child- widows such as you are, heart's-de- light — are married, regularly married by priests of our religion. Those old days of persecution are over, Anunda. The law has legalised such unions, and no one dare say a word." A comical look came to her brilliant little face. "And my lord's mother — will she say nothing?" The question pierced even Ramanund's coat of culture. He fully intended telling his revered parent of his approaching marriage, and the thought of doing so, even in the general way which he pro- posed to himself, was fraught with sheer terror. What then would it be when he had to present her with this daughter-in-law in the concrete? He took refuge from realities by giving a lecture on the individual rights of man, while Anunda played like a child with the chumpak garland with which she had adorned him. 80 ON THE SECOND STOKY And so with a grey glimmer the rapid dawn began to dispute possession of those dim arches with the smoky flare of the lamps, making those two rise reluctantly and steal with echoing footsteps past the malignant half-seen figure behind the closed fretwork doors. The blood-red glint of those outstretched arms with their suggestion of clasping and closing on all within their reach, must have roused a remi- niscence of that past defiance in the young school- master's brain ; for he paused before the shrine, his arms still round Anunda, to say triumphantly ; "Good-bye, Kali mail Good-bye for ever." The girl, clinging to him fearfully, looked round into the shadows on either side. " Hush, my lord, wdio knows whether She really sleeps ; and She is in dangerous mood. They say so." Her light foot marked her meaning by a tap on the echomy floor. " What, reckless one ! " said her lover in fond jest. "Hast grown so full of courage that thou wouldst signal them to come ? Art not afraid what they might do?" The panic on her face startled him. " Ramu," she whispered, " for my sake say it once — ' Jal Kali ma f> Say it ; it will not hurt." " Nothing will hurt, Anunda," he answered sharply. " Nothing can hurt." "Can it not? Sometimes I have fancied, down- stairs, that they suspect, Ramu ! — if " ON THE SECOND STOKY 81 " If they do, what then ? To-morrow will see us far away. I tell you the times are changed. Why there is a police station within hail almost. Nay, sweetheart! I will not say it. Come, the dawn breaks." " For my sake, Ramu, for my sake," she pleaded, even as he drew her with him, reluctant yet willing. And now on the landing where the brick and the stone met, he paused again, his pulses throbbing with passion, to think that this was their last parting. " Take heart, beloved," he whispered. " Sure I am Ram and thou art Anunda. Who can hinder God's happiness when He gives it?"^ The conceit upon the meaning of their names brought a faint smile to her face, and yet once more she whispered doubtfully : "But this is happiness. Ah, Ramu! it would be better — so " " It will be better," he corrected. " It is quite easy, heart's beloved. A hired carriage and two railway tickets, that is all ! As for Mai Kali — I defy her ! " Suddenly through the darkness, which seemed to hold them closer to each other, came a sound making them start asunder. It was the clang of the bell which hung before the shrine. " Kali ma ! Kali ma ! " Anunda's pitiful little sobbing cry blent with the clang as she lied down- 1 Ram anund. Bam, God ; anund, happiness. 82 ON THE SECOND STORY stairs, and the mingled sound sent a strange thrill of fear to Ramanund's heart. Kali herself could not have heard ; but if there had been others beside themselves amid the shadows? He climbed to his lodging on the roof full of vague anxiety and honest relief that the strain and the stress and the passion of the last fortnight was so nearly at an end. It was lucky, he told himself, that it had happened during holiday time, or the exact sciences must have suffered — for of course the idea of Anunda's yielding to them was preposter- ous ; Anunda who had made him forget everything save that he was her lover. He fell asleep thinking of her, and slept even through the wailing which arose ere long in the next lodging. The wailing of a household over an only son reft from it by Kali ma. "The wrath of the gods is on the house," said Ramanund's widowed mother when he came down late next morning. " And I wonder not when chil- dren disobey their parents. But I will hear thy excuses no longer, Ramo. God knows but my slackness hitherto hath been the cause of that poor boy's death. The holy man downstairs holds that She is angry for our want of faith, and many folks believe him, and vow some sacrifice of purification. So shall I, Ramanund. This very day I will speak to my cousin Gungo of her daughter." " Thou wilt do nothino^ of the kind, mother," ON THE SECOND STORY 83 replied Ramaiiuiid quietly. " I have made my own arrangements. I am going to marry a widow, a young and virtuous widow." He felt dimly surprised at his own courage, per- haps a little elated, seeing how severe the qualms of anticipation had been ; so he looked his mother in the face fairly as, startled out of all senses save sight, she stared at him as if he had been a ghost. Then suddenly she threw her arms above her head and beat her palms together fiercely. "J/az Kali! Mai Kali I justly art Thou in- censed. Ai! Kirpo! Ai ! Bishun ! listen, hear. This is the cause. My son, the light of mine eyes, the son of my prayers, has done this thing. He is the cursed one I He would bring a widow to a Brahmin hearth. Jai Kali ma! Jai Kali ma!'' ''Mother! mother! for God's sake," pleaded Ramanund, aghast at the prospect of having the secret of his heart made bazaar property. " Think ; give me time." " Time ! " she echoed wildly. " What time is there when folks die every minute for thy sin? Oh, Ramo, son of my prayer, repent — do atone- ment. Lo! come with me even now and humble thyself before Her feet. I will ask no more but that to-day— no more." She thrust her hands feverishly into his as if to drag him to the shrine. 84 ON THE SECOND STORY " For my sake, Ramo, for the sake of many a poor mother, remember whose son thou art, and forsake not thy fathers utterly." "Mother!" he faltered; "mother!" And then silence fell between them. For what words could bridge the gulf which the rapid flood of another nation's learning had torn between these two? A gulf not worn away by generations of culture, but reft recklessly through solid earth. Simply there was nothing he felt to be said, as with a heart aching at the utter impossibility of their ever understanding each other, he did his best to sooth her superstitious fears. But here he was met by a conviction, an obsti- nacy which surprised him ; for he had been too much occupied during the last fortnight to observe the signs of the times around him, and knew noth- ing of the religious terror which, carefully fomented by the priests as a means of extortion, had seized upon the neighbourhood. When, however, it did dawn upon him that the general consensus of opinion lay towards a signal expression of the Goddess' anger, which needed signal propitiation by more numerous sacrifices, his indignation knew no bounds, and carried him beyond the personal question into general condemnation, so that, ere many minutes were over, she was attempting to sooth him in her turn. That God was above all ON THE SECOND STORY 85 was, however, their one bond of unity; in that they both agreed. The truth would be made mani- fest by the sickness being stayed or increased by the sacrifices. Meanwhile the very thought of these latter, while it roused his anger, horrified his refinement into a certain silence, and kept him prisoner to the roof all day for fear of meeting some struggling victim on its way upstairs to the second story. This did not matter so much, how- ever, since all his arrangements were made, and he had even taken the precaution to secure his railway tickets through a branch of Cook's agency which had been lately opened in the city. He took them out of his pocket sometimes and looked at them, feeling a vague comfort in their smug, civilised appearance. Fate must needs be common- place and secure, surely, with such vouchers for safe conduct as these ! So the long hot day dragged its slow length along. Every now and again the death-wail, near or distant, would rise in even, discordant .rhythm on the hot air ; and as the sun set it began, loudly imperative, under his very roof. The only son was being carried out to the burning ghdt^ and the cries and sobs utterly overwhelmed the shouts and shufflings of feet, the moans and murmur of voices, which all day long had come from the second story. It was a relief that it should be so ; that the ear might no 86 ox THE SECOND STORY longer be all unwillingly on the strain to catch some sound that would tell of a death-struggle in the slaughter-house downstairs. And yet the scene being enacted, perchance, on that three-cornered landing which, for once, visualised itself to Rama- nun d's clear brain, was not one in which to find much consolation. The crowds of mourners edging the bier down the narrow stairs, the crowd of wor- shippers dragging the victims up. He wondered which stood aside to give place to the other — the Living or the Dead ? The flower-decked corpse or the flower-decked victim ? Flowers and blood I Blood and flowers for a Demon of Death who was satisfied with neither! Ramanund, excited, over- strained, wearied by many a sleepless night of hap- piness, covered his face with his hands to shut out the sight even of the book which he tried to read. So, as the sun sunk red in the western haze leav- ing the roof cooler, he fell asleep and slept soundly. When he woke it was dark, and yet, as he stood up stretching himself, a faint paling of the horizon warned him that there was light beneath it — light that was coming to the world. The moon? Con- fused as he was by sleep, the thought came to him, only to be set aside by memory. There was no moon ; for this was the dark night of Kali. The dark night ! Then that must be the dawn when he had promised to meet Anunda on the ON THE SECOND STORY 87 threshold ! Was it possible that he had slept so long ? Yet not too long, since the dawn had not yet come, and he was ready. Hurriedly feeling for the safety of those precious tickets, and taking up a Gladstone bag which he had already packed, he stole down from the roof cautiously; and from thence to the landing. There was a new odour now blending with the perfumes of the flowers, and the incense, and the women: an odour which sickened him as he stood waiting and watching in the now deserted threshold. It was the odour of the shambles; an odour which seemed also to lie heavy on the breath and shorten it. So by quick strides the grey glimmer through the stone lattice grew and grew to whiteness. Yet no one came, and there was no light step on the stair- case below to tell of a late-comer. "Anunda! Anunda ! " he whispered more than once, even his low tones seeming to stir the heavy atmosphere into waves of sweet sickening perfume. Was it possible that she was waiting for him within — in the old place? That must be it, surely, or else something had happened. What ? With a beating heart he moved on into the ante- shrine picking his steps in an almost morbid terror of what he might be treading upon. "■ Anunda ! Anunda I " 88 ON THE SECOND STORY There was no answer save, heavier than before, that sort of scented w^ave coming back from his ow^n words. She was not there, and something must have happened. . . . Not there ! Impossible, with those tickets in his pocket, that hired carriage waiting at the end of the alley, that police station round the corner! . . . He strode forward with renewed courage, heed- less of the damp clamminess at his feet; strode recklessly right into the yellow flare of the lamps. Save for that ghastly crimson upon the floor, the walls, the canopy, the place lay unchanged, and quiet as the grave. No ! there was a change ; the iron doors were open, and there, upon the low stone- slab before those clutching arms, lay something. . . . God in Heaven ! what was it ? A head — a small dark Ramanund's scream caught in the big bell which hung above him, and the last thing he heard, as he fell forward on that crimson floor, was its faint booming echo of his own cry. ****** When he came to himself again, six weeks had passed by. The heat was over, the cholera had gone, and he la}^ in one of the new wards of a new hospital whither his anxious friends had had liim conveyed when they found how ill he was. ON THE SECOND STOKY 89 The very strangeness of Lis environment held him silent for the first few moments of conscionsness ; then with a rush it all came back upon him and, weak as he was, he sat up in bed wildly. "Anunda! Anunda! My God! the shrine! — the blood ! " "It is a bad sign," remarked the doctor to one of his friends significantly when they had persuaded him to lie down again quietly, more from inability to sit up, than from obedience. "It is a bad sign when the delusions remain after the fever has left the brain. However, it is early days yet, and we must hope for the best." "You should rid your mind of such things," said the pleader a week or two afterwards when, despite Ramanund's growing strength of body, he still reverted again and again to that terrible dark night of Kali, imploring them to search out the criminals and have them brought to justice. " There is, pardon me, not a tittle of evidence for truth of your story ; but circumstantial proof to contrary as I will state categorically. First, known dislike to and hatred for Kali and such like, leading to lan- guage in my hearing calculated to break the peace. Second, known excitement consequent perhaps on general sickness, stress of examinations before holi- day times, and such like, leading to general look of fatigue and absent-mindedness noticeable to friends 90 ON THE SECOND STORY as myself. Third, known physical horror of blood leading to much recrimination of sacrifices, and such like; even to extent of shutting yourself up all day, as per mother's evidence, from fear of disagreeables. Finally, profound feverish sleep watched by same mother with dubiosity several times, ending in sleep-walk to the reeking shrine where you are found by Brahmins after dawn unconscious. What can be closer chain of convincing proof?" " We have made every inquiry," said his other friends soothingly, "short of informing the police; and we can find no trace of what you assert. Human sacrifices in times of great sickness may sometimes, doubtless, be on the tapis, but this one we believe is but figment of a still clouded brain. You must have patience. All will come clear in time." And when he asked for his new friend, the friend in whom he had partly confided his love story, they shook their heads sadly. "He was almost last victim to cholera," they said, " the cause has lost a shining light. All the more need, Ramanund, why thou shouldst shake off these idle fancies, and be our leader to perfect freedom of thought and action." Perfect freedom of thought and action! Rama- nund as lie lay slowly recovering of his brain fever wondered if he would ever have the heart to be- ON THE SECOND STORY 91 lieve in such a thing again. Wondered if he would ever again dare to call himself a repre- sentative of India — that India which had killed Anunda. For that the horrible sight he had seen on the slab of stone beneath Kali's clutching arms was no dream or delusion, but a reality, he never for an instant doubted. Why they had done her to death, was the only uncertainty which tortured him as he lay hopelessly silent; silent because there was no use in words when none believed them. Had it been simply a religious sacrifice to stay the plague — a sacrifice known to thousands who w^ould guard the secret as a divine obligation? The choice falling, naturally enough, on one who was a stranger, and utterly helpless in the hands of her priestly relations? Or was it merely the jogis revenge for his challenge. Or was it jeal- ousy. Had they discovered the intrigue, and was the man who had drawn the trident of Siva on his forehead also the man of whom poor little Anunda had spoken with such terror? Yet what did it matter, since she was dead? What did any- thing matter beside the memory of that piteous whis- per, "Oh Ramu! it would be better — so " Ah! why had he tried to interfere with the old ways ? — why had he sought for more — why had he not let her be happy while she could, in her own way? 92 ON THE SECOND STORY When he left the hospital he found his mother installed in a new lodging. It would not be good for him, his friends had said, to return to the old environment while his mind was still clouded by delusions, so she had performed the utmost act of self-denial of which an Hindu woman is capable, and removed herself and her belongings from the house where she had lived her life. But she would have done anything for Ramanund at any time ; how much more so now, when the Goddess had shown that She still held him as her faithful servant by signs and wonders. Had She not drawn him in his sleep to Her very feet, on Her dark night? — he who would never cross Her threshold ! And had he not been found there prostrate amid the blood of sacrifices, with one of Her garlands round his neck? — he who would never wear a flower ! "A garland," faltered Ramanund when she told him this exultantly. Ay ! a garland which she would cherisli as her dearest possession since the Goddess Herself must have thrown it around him — a garland which she should show him — if — if he ever again talked foolishness as he had talked that day when he had frightened her so, not knowing that he was already in a fever. "ShoAv it me now, mother," he said quietly. So she showed it to him. The chumpak blossoms ON THE SECOND STORY 93 were but yellow shreds upon a string, scentless, unrecognisable; here and there clogged black with the blood of sacrifice which had stained them as he fell. " Take it awa}^ I " he cried fiercely, thrusting it from him. '' Take it away ! Oh ! curses on the cruelty — curses on the " "•Jai Kali ma!'' interrupted his mother as she laid the relic back in the little casket whence she had taken it. '' Jai Kali ma! for She stayed the sickness." Ramanund looked at her in dull dazed wonder. But it was true what she said. The cholera had slackened from that very time when he had been found lying at the Goddess' feet. GLORY-OF-WOMAN This is tlie story of a backwater; one of those still nooks sheltered by sedges whither the sere and yellow leaves drift and rest, while the current beyond slips by swift as ever. Why this particular backwater should have called itself a Technical School of Art-needlework has nothing to do with the story. Briefly it was a sort of almshouse where twelve old Mohammedan ladies drew a poor monthly pittance of some few rupees, and sat contentedly enough year after year twining gold thread on to fine net. What became of the work when it Avas done has also nothing to do with the story. Per- haps it was sold to eke out the funds of a charity which did its fair share of solacing sorrow in keep- ing twelve pairs of small, soft, high-bred hands from the quern-handle ; that last resource of the poor in India now, as it was when the Great Mogul refused to allow the importation of Western machin- ery on the ground that God's best gift to the poor was the millstone about their necks. It was in this odd little courtyard, packed away 94 GLORY-OF-WOMAN 95 decorously in the very heart of the loose-living, gam- bling, gold-worker's quarter, that Glory-of-Woman found shelter after many years of patient, peaceful privation ; for Fakr-un-nissa (that was how her name ran in the soft courtly tongue of the most brutal of cities) was a Syyedani ; in other words, of the poorest and proudest, too poor to bring a dowr}^ to a husband of her own rank, too generous to take one without it, too proud to stoop to a partner beneath her — or rather too gentle, too conserva- tive. There are hundreds such women in Delhi, and Fakr-un-nissa had been more fortunate than most, seeing that being learned in the Koran she had kept body and soul together by recitations at fast and festival in the zenanas^ and so been spared hard labour. Perhaps it was this which made her look younger than her fifty and odd years; at all events there was scarcely a wrinkle on her small oval face, and her tall, slender figure showed no sign of age. She was the youngest of the scholars, and every evening when -the gold thread and the filmy net had been locked away in a queer little carven coffer, she was the last to slip her small feet into one of those twelve pairs of curly shoes which all day long had been ranged against the slip of wall doing duty as a screen at the door, and the last to use the rickety dliooli which the charity pro- 96 GLORY-OF-WOMAN videcl for the modest conveyance of the fair ones to their homes. It provided a chaperone too, in the shape of a big lump of a girl about twenty, who sat on the steps all day chattering to the passers-by, giggling at their jokes, and chewing pdn. It was a queer arrangement seeing that Khadjiya Khanum, the eldest of the scholars, was past eighty; but then age had nothing to do with the fact that she was a Syyedani^ and Juntu only a gad-about. There was another pair of shoes, however, placed in a corner apart from the rest; for it had come to be a recognised custom in the backwater that there should always be a thirteenth pair of feet ready to slip into any vacancy made by the sure decay which comes alike to rest as to unrest. And so, five years before, wdien Fakr-un- nissa had stepped into the last pair of shoes left by a deserted wife who had gone down into the grave leaving one forlorn daughter behind her, the old ladies had cast about to choose a suitable aspi- rant. Not that they really had the right to appoint any one, but because experience showed them that the claims of a gratuitous worker were seldom overlooked when opportunity came for urging them. This time the choice fell, naturally enough, on the daughter of the dead scholar. Just in her teens, she was hopelessly alone in the world ; for her mother, after estranging her own people by a mar- GLORY-OF-WOMAN 97 riage with a Mohammedan Rajpoot, had quarrelled with her husband's family; but not before little Yasmin had been married, and had, according to the Ranghar custom, become a widow for life by the death of her childish bridegroom. For race is stronger than religion and the old Rajpoot ideas have survived conversion. So Yasmin in her turn w^aited for a vacancy in the shoes ; or rather Noor- banu waited, since the old ladies would have noth- ing to do with tlie flowery, half -heathen name, and set themselves diligently to transform her into a " Lady-of-light." It was not altogether a successful attempt, for the girl's wild Rajpoot blood waxed rebellious sometimes ; but as a rule Fakr-un-nissa's soft voice with its polished periods and careful intonation would bring her back to obedience. " Lo I thou shouldst mind me. Heart's Delight," Glory-of- Woman would say with a smile. " Do I not stand in Thy mother's shoes ? Thou art young now, Yasmina ; so was I once ; yet thou wilt be as I am, some day." And Yasmina would make a face. "Well! that is better than being like Khadjiya Khanum, or Maimana Begum with her little eyes." So the years passed bringing no blank to the roll of high-sounding names, no break in the row of shoes, no vacant place in the semicircle of old women which chased the sunshine round the court 98 GLORY-OF-AYOMAN during the cold months, and the shade during the hot ones. For they felt the stress of the seasons in their old bones. Otherwise winter and summer were alike to them ; as was the green leaf and the sere since they had never seen either. But Yasmin felt the spring-time in her blood and began to weary of being at every one's beck and call. " She is a Ranghar ! Bury a dog's tail for twelve years, and it will still be crooked," said Maimana Begum. She was full to the brim of proverbial wisdom, and had a little clique of her own in that semicircle of flimsy net, glittering gold thread, and withered hands. Mumtaza Mahul's head, and those of half a dozen Lights, or Desires, or Ornaments of the Palace, the World, or^ of Woman, wagged in assent to her words. It was easy to change a name but not a nature ; and had every one heard that some one had seen Noor-Banu talking to a woman with whom she ought not to have been talking ? Glory-of-Woman's thin face grew eager. " 'Tis a cousin, Mai Kliadjiya. The girl told me of it and I have inquired. A cousin of the father's, married — yea ! married, indeed, to a trooper, like he is, serving the Sirkar somewhere. Such folks lose hold on old ways, yet mean no harm. We must not judge them as ourselves." " Wdh, Fakr-un-nissa I Wouldjt say the Devil GLORY-OF-WOMAN 99 meant no harm next. Thy heart spoils thy faith. I marvel at thee, thou who dost fast and pray more than is needful." The ring of bitterness in old Khadjiya's tones was explained by the fact that it was nigh the end of the first ten days' fast of Mohurrum-tide and she had not chosen that any, despite her age, should exceed her in the observance thereof. And Fakr-un-nissa's zeal had raised the price of self- complacency beyond reason. " More than is needful ! " echoed INIaimana Begum with a like tartness. "Art not rash to say so, Mai Khadjiya? Sure the virtue of some folk is situate as the tongue among thirty-two teeth. It needs care to preserve itself." The white shrouded figures chuckled. They were not really ill-humoured, or evilly disposed towards Glory-of- Woman ; it was simply that her excellent example had made all their old bodies rather fretful. "And as for the girl," continued the acrid voice, "she is a cat on the wall. God only knows on which side she will jump down." Fakr-un-nissa's eyes flashed, and her fingers en- tangled themselves in the gold thread. " Then, for sure, it is our part to make the right side more pleasant than the wrong; not to be always finding fault because she is young. Yea, 'tis so ; for look you, it seems ever to me that we are to blame — 100 GLORY-OF-WOMAN that we are in lier place. Five long years is it since she hath waited." Khadjiya Khanum's hands dropped from her work and flew out in vehement crackings of every joint against ill-luck. " Tohah., Tohah ! (For shame, for shame !) Mistress Fakr-un-nissa. Die if thou wilt to make room for the hussy. As for me, I wait on the will of the Lord." A murmur of assent ran tlirough the semicircle once more. '' Nay, nay ! I meant not so," protested Fakr-un- nissa hastily. ''Lo, death comes to all, and goeth not by age. I meant but this, — sure 'tis hard to put it to words — that the old should make room for the young, or make the waiting bearable." " Tchu ! If the heart be set on a frog, what doth it care for a fairy?" insisted the hoarder of other folk's wisdom. "Dost mean to hint that in this place the girl hath not had virtue set constantly before her, ay, and preached too? It seems to me that we have it almost to satiety. Is it not so, sisters ? " Once more the chuckle ran round the circle, and Glory-of- Woman sat still more upright. " Amongst thy other proverbs, canst not recollect the one which says, 'Between the two priests the fowl killed for dinner became unlawful to eat ' ? " Then the temper died fi'om her face and she went on in a softer tone: GLORY-OF-^VQM.Ai^ '>,' i''> '''' ' 101 '^ I find no harm in the girl, and what wrong hath she done this day more than another ? " "No more, for sure," put in Mumtaza Mahul, " since she is hite at work every day ; that is no new thing, is it, sisters?" " Yet she finishes her task as quick as any, — as I, anyhow," persisted Yasmina's advocate, who having come to the gold thread late in life found it apt to knot. " Wdh-illdh ! What a fuss about a wilful girl," put in a new^ voice. "She is no worse than others, and needs restraint no more. She hath grown saucy since we gave her money instead of broken victuals. Put her back to the old footing, say I, when she had nought of her own." Kliadjiya Khanum's veiled head nodded sagely. " Thou hast it, Hameda-banu. Lo, I, for one, know not why the girl was ever given such freedom, save indeed that it tallies with Fakr-un-nissa's indecent hastening of Providence. I am for the old plan." "And I," — "And I," — "And I," — assented a chorus of set, certain voices. Glory-of-Woman's fingers flew faster. " Then will ye drive the girl from us altogether. I know it, I feel it. Yea, I, Fakr-un-nissa, singer of the Koran till my tone failed me, remember it; — those days when some other song seemed better and one must needs sing it ! Think, sisters, remember ! The eyes of the body are two ; the eye of the soul is one," 102 gtory^-of-tVoman The work had dropped from her hands which were stretched out in eager entreaty. " 'Tis but patience for a year or two. Then, since there is no harm in her, she will settle down as — as I — as I did. 'Tis but the youth in her veins, and God knows that is soon past for a woman ; yet one's glory remains." Her voice regaining some of its jDast strength, recol- lecting all its old skill under the stimulus of both memory and hope, filled the little courtyard, — and availed nothing. Half an hour afterwards, struck dumb, as sensitive natures are, by the stress of passion around her, she was watching with stupid inaction Yasmin's final ven- geance on that decorous row of curly shoes behind the screening wall. To right and left, to this corner and that, they sped before the reckless young feet while the reckless young voice rose in mockery. " Lo, I wait no longer for old women's shoes. I will have new ones of my own. Khujju, and Mujju, and the rest of ye can sort them for yourselves, or go down to the grave one foot at a time as seemeth to ye best. I care not ; I wait no longer." One pair flew full in Maimana Begum's face, and then came a pause before the last pair, an odd sound between a laugh and a sob, a sudden sweep of the net veil over the shoulder, and a half-defiant nod to the old white fingers. " These shall sta}^ because they were my mother's, and because " GLORY-OF-WUMAN 103 The next moment she was gone, leaving the twelve old women sitting in the sunshine, breathless, silenced by her ^^outh, her unreason, her fire. Even Fakr-un- nissa had no word of defence. But after a time, when Juntu, full of smiles and winks, came from the steps to aid the cackle which arose as the silencing effect of the shock wore away, Glory-of-Woman began to feel the old pain at her heart once more. " Because they were my mother's, and because " She could fill up the pause in two ways : '' Because they are yours, and you have been kinder than the others " ; " Because they should by rights be mine." Both answers were disturbing. She leaned back against the wall, pressing her thin hands to the thin breast which had known so little of a woman's life, save only that craving for another song. " Towards the bazaar, sayest thou ? " came Khad- jiya's wrathfully satisfied voice. " To the bazaar, and in Mohurrum-tide, too ! That means the worst, and we were none too soon in getting rid of her, Heaven be praised ! " " The cousin lives close to the Choiulc^^'' put in Fakr-un-nissa faintly. " Mayhap the girl goes there." Juntu laughed. " The cousin is a bad one ; no better." Whereat Maimana Begum remarked sagely that whether the knife fell on the melon or the melon on the knife was all one ; the melon suffered. 104 GLOllY-OF-WOMAN Yasmin's reputation was hopelessly hurt by that going bazaar-wards. " For a Syyeddni perchance," retorted Juntu with some acerbity. " Yet this I say ; there is no harm in the girl though she be younger than some folk who need dhoolis to their virtue." She hated the proverb-monger who never from year's end to year's end gave her a coivrie or so much even as a word of thanks. And then being Mohurrum-tide, when in all pious houses the Assemblage of Mourning must be held, the work was folded away in the old carved coffer, the desecrated shoes sorted into pairs, and one by one the old ladies were smuggled into the curtained dhooU and trotted away to their homes, with buxom Juntu chattering and laughing alongside. "Dost recite the Mursidh'^ at the Nawab's this year, Fakr-un-nissa ? " asked Humeda-banu, wrapping herself carefully in a thick white veil. Glory-of-Woman shook her head. "They have a new one. Last Mohurrum I grew hoarse. Per- haps 'twas the fever; it had held me for days." "Fever I" echoed the other. "Say rather the fasting. Thou hast a dead look in the face even now, and as for me, God knows whether I feel hungry or sick. Thou shouldst remember that thou art growing old." 1 The direfore I had time to realise what I saw, came shouts and cries, a melee and a scuftle. Armed men ran out of the shadows, and then Sambo's voice was insistent, '' Run, sahib, run I 'Tis your only chance. The boat — tlie boat ! " Then some one hit me over the head from behind, and when I came to myself I was lying in the bottom of the boat. Bannerman was standing beside me shaking his fist impotently at the twinkling lights on the bank, and Sambo sat aft steering as best he could ; for the oars had gone and we were racing with the flood towards the rapids. They had bound up my head with some- thing, but I still felt stunned, and the rush of the rising river surged in my ears through the thin planks as I lay. So perhaps it was only my fancy that those two sat talking, talking, arguing, arguing, about the old, old problems. Till suddenly I sat up to the clear sound of Sambo's voice. " It is not to be done, Huzoor. We are in the hands of fate. If death comes, it will come, but it will end in birth." THE BLUE-THROATED GOD 163 The answer was that half-jeering laugh I knew so well. " I'll chance it, Nil-kunt ; I don't believe you." Bannerman had stripped to the skin, and stood forward looking at the narrowing rush of the river. I could see the great logs of wood, swept from the hill-forests above, dancing along beside us on the curved surface of the stream — so curved by the very force of the current that as our boat, steered by Sambo's skill, kept the centre, the dim banks slid past below us. Across them, just ahead, a curved thread not four feet, now the flood had risen, above the water. The rope bridge ! Then I understood. "Don't!" I cried feebly. "No man — can — withstand the force — of the stream." He crooked his knees beneath the thwarts and held up his arms. " Don't " I cried again. The boat slackened for an instant ; for an instant only. Then it shot on, leaving Bannerman cling- ing to the rope — shot on round the bend, leaving him hanging there between birth and death. But Sambo never took his watchful eyes off those merry, dancing logs, which meant destruction. The horror of it all was too much. I fainted. When consciousness returned. Sambo, grave and composed, was bending over me. We were drift- 164 THE BLUE-THROATED GOD ing fast into the backwater before my own bungalow, and behind us, looking spectral in the iii'st glint of dawn, lay the great bridge, the flare of the watch-fires on its piers telling of the severity of the flood. " The Suzoor is at home," said the man quietly ; ''if Buniah-man sahib had taken my advice he would have been at home also." We had been a whole day and night on the river ; but he seemed no more fatigued than I, who had escaped all the suspense. For the rest, no trace remained of the adventure save an oval scratch on my forehead surrounding the faint ves- tiges of something like an eye. " It is the mark of Siva," said my servant piously — he had come down with haste by rail to bring the news of my death — " doubtless he took the Huzoor under his protection ; for which I will offer a blood oblation without delay." Bannerman's body was never found ; but some months after, when I was inspecting foundations, I heard the kingfisher's cry, and the familiar cloop of a dive at the further side of the pier. Then Sambo, Rudra, Nilkunta — whatever you please to call him — showed his yellow-brown face above the yellow-brown flood bearing a ring in his mouth: a Palais Royal affair — two diamond hearts trans- fixed by a ruby arrow. THE BLUE-THKOATED GOD 165 I had seen Bannerman wear it a hundred times, but I had never seen the inscription engraved inside. " Thy Hps, oh ! beloved Life, are nectar." It was a quotation from the KrisJma or Prem Sdgar ! A TOURIST TICKET 1 "Dost forget, brother, that it is the Fast?" said Raheem, as with gentle, determined hand he pushed the leaf-cnp of sweets further from the board on which his tools lay. There were not many of them, though the inlaid work upon the sandal-wood comb he was making showed delicate as lace. It suited the delicate hands employed upon it; in a way also it suited the delicate brain behind the high narrow forehead, which had a look of ill-health about the temples, where the thick, coarse, black hair was also delicately streaked with silver ; sure sign, in a land where grayness is long deferred, of a troubled body or mind. Raheem had barely touched middle age ; in his case the trouble seemed to be in both body and mind, to judge by his hollow eyes and the ex- pression in them as they rested on a younger man, wlio sat, as a visitor, on the plinth of the comb- maker's shop. His feet were in the gutter, and his handsome head was nodding gaily to various ac- quaintances in the steady stream of passers-by; for the odd little shop was wedged into the outer angle 1 Copyright, 1895, by Macmillaii & Co. 166 A TOURIST TICKET 167 of a sharp bend in the narrow bazaar, so that as Raheem sat workmg at his scented combs he could see both ways — could see all the world, coming and going, from dawn till dark. Hoshyar laughed, nodding his handsome head once more : " Yea ! I forgot that thou dost fast for both of us, and pray for both of us. Mayhap in the end, brother, thou mayest have to go to Paradise for both of us, despite all thy pains." The busy hand ceased to work in a gesture of negation. " Say not such things, Hoshyar. We go together, or go not at all. Thou knowest that was my promise to the dead." Hoshyar ate another comfit before replying with a shrug of the shoulders : " 'Twas not on stamped paper, though, and promises are naught nowadays without it. 'Tis bad policy to be over-pious, brother. As all know, the saint's beard goes in relics, and to tell truth, I would be better pleased to leave Paradise to those who wish for it. The world suits me. I was not born to be religious, as thou wert." The comb-maker looked at him with a sort of perplexed patience. " God knows His own work," he said in a low voice. " The Potter makes ; the World fills. I remember when thou first wentest to school, Hoshyar, how thou didst weep because it prevented thee from prayer-time. And at the festivals, — dost remember, brother, thou hadst a 168 A TOURIST TICKET little coat of brocade? Mother cut it from our father's old one she cherished so " " Old tales, old tales I " interrupted Hoshyar, rising with another shrug of his shoulders. "If thou hadst wished me to continue in them, why didst send me to school to learn new ones ? Why didst not make me a comb-carver instead of a clerk ? Then might I have saved money, as thou hast, gone on the great pilgrimage, as thou hast, and worn a green turban like thine to show it, as thou dost " A sharp spasm of pain swept over the older man's face, but there was anger also in his voice. "As thou wouldst have done also, clerk though thou art, if " " Yea, I know, I know ! " interrupted Hoshyar impatiently ; " if I had not emptied the bag so often. But 'tis a pity to let money lie idle. And that time when thou hadst the sum needed for the journey, I would have gone. I meant to have gone, I swear it ; but the leave failed, and thou wouldst not, surely, have had me give up my post ? Then, ere the leave came, the money had gone instead. I can never keep it lying idle, and so " Raheem's anger faded, leaving nothing but the pain. What use was there in finishing the sentence, in reproaching the sinner with having done far worse than let good money lie idle? The fact only made the pilgrimage a greater necessity than ever, if Nakir A TOURIST TICKET 169 and. iMiinkir, the recording angels, were to be bribed to leniency. "Thou shalt have the green turban yet," he said quietly, "if thou wilt have patience. But my combs are not like Peera's over the way : he makes a dozen to my one ; ay, and sells them, too, for folk buy ever the cheapest thing, nowadays, even for an Eed-offering." ^ There was almost an incredulous wonder in his voice as he went on working, while Hoshyar stood kicking one patent-leather shoe viciously against a loose brick in the pavement. "And in the mean- time the future pilgrim must live," he remarked jestingly, as if, even to his effrontery, it was easier to treat what he had to say thus, than in earnest. "So if thou couldst spare a rupee or two from the bag, Raheem " His brother's eyes looked up, full of reproach. " I know what thou wouldst say," he went on pettishly. " I have had more than my share this month ; but I need it sorely. The skinflints at the ofiice have cut my pay for being late, — as if I could help the tramcar passing full five minutes before its time, — so I had to walk. And then the mixed train, which is ever an hour late, chose to be punctual ; so there was none to receive the waybills." He paused, and seeing the doubt on Raheem's face, continued: "As for the combs, if thou hast difficulty in selling, I 1 Equivalent to onr Easter. 170 A TOURIST TICKET might try. That one thou madest last with jasmine flowers in ivory, — 'tis a deft piece of work, and I know one who might buy it." " Not Yasmeena ? " asked Raheem, his face harden- ing, despite the girl-like flush which came to it. Hoshyar laughed uneasily. '' Thou hast Yas- meena on thy brain, brother. She is no worse than others of her trade, and that will last till all men are of thy way of thinking. Yasmeena I Nay, thou knowest she hath not the money to pay for such costly gew-gaws, for she is not as the others, now ; she is not to be bought or sold herself." A man more of the world than Raheem, noting the change of tone in the last words, would have au- gured much of Yasmeena's power over the speaker ; but the comb-maker was too simple for such wisdom. "If she buys it not, well and good," he replied, relax- ing his frown; "but I will lend myself to no truck between thee and her. And as for the rupees " He sighed, yet there was no hesitation in the hands which began to unlock a brass-bound box lying be- side his board. " Thou wouldst rise earlier, brother," he continued, almost tenderly, as he counted three rupees from a little bag into the outstretched palm awaiting the gift, "if thou wouldst sleep a little earlier also. Lo ! I sleep and wake with the birds, since my work must be of the light." It streamed full upon him and his tools as he A TOURIST TICKET 171 spoke, a pale gold flame of sunshine, searching for each flaw, each failure. " Coulclst not make it five, Raheem?" came the sordid voice. "That is bare bread." The flame of the sunshine had found a resting- place in Raheem's eyes as he looked at the beggar from head to foot. " And this is salvation," he replied, dropping the bag back into the box with a chink, and turning the key upon it. Salvation ! Yes ; that is what it really meant to Raheem. It meant salvation for one soul ; but for which? After his brother had gone he asked him- self this question for the hundredth time, asked it almost feverishly. Ought he to trust to the chance? Was it likely that he would have time ere his life ended — that life which had always been so uncer- tain — to make provision for both himself and Hoshyar in death? It would not do to trust Hoshyar with the money. He, Raheem, must make the pilgrimage for him ; and was it likely when the rupees came so slowly and went so fast that the hoard in the bag would be complete for years? Ought he not then to make over — as according to the canon, he could do if he chose — the virtue of that past pilgrimage to his brother, and take the risk of the coming one upon himself ? Hoshyar needed virtue sorely, and yet the very thought of going forth to the Judgment-Seat without the panoply in 172 A TOURIST TICKET Avliich for long years he had found peace and shelter was a terror to Raheem. Could he do it? Nay, it was too much ; and yet, — if that promise to the dead were broken wilfully, — what good would imputed righteousness be before the Throne? And meanwhile Hoshyar his brother, a clerk in the railway, sat smoking a vile cigar at the feet of Yasmeena, who, lounging on a string bed, was draw- ing the scented sandal-wood comb, inlaid with the flowers whose name she bore, through her sleek hair. " Give it me, beloved," she said scornfully ; " then thy promise to the saint will be secure. I must have it ; 'tis the prettiest in the bazaar ; even Gulanari, with all her airs, has not its marrow. See, I will sell it to her when I tire of it, and then thou canst give back his three rupees to the miser. Three rupees ! I shall spend that in a day. And Monday is the Eed. I must have a new gown for it, or " She did not finish her sentence, but her look was eloquent ; and Hoshyar, as he lay awake that night, her meaning driven home by hints of coming cold- ness, racked his brains for some means of procuring the dress. Raheem meanwhile lay awake also, think- ing of a very different costume ; of a robe of right- eousness, a wedding-garment. Those three rupees given to Hoshyar had been meant for an Eed-offer- ing, the Eed which drew so near. There was no time to earn more. Should he go empty-handed to A TOURIST TICKET 173 give thanks for the added virtue of having been granted life to keep the Great Fast, or should he offer up his pilgrimage by making it over once and for all to his brother? Hoshyar had been asleep for hours, and the spar- rows were astir ere Raheem found any answer. He would wait another day, he told himself, before de- ciding ; so he sat in the sunlight seeking perfection in his delicate curves and lines, while the pale gold rays peeped and pryed for flaws and failures. '' Have you a comb like that, finished ? " asked a foreign voice, making him raise his head and salamn hopefully. "None so good, Huzoor ; but I have others." He took them from the brass-bound box and waited; then noting the Englishman's look, said wistfully: "I had one yesterday, but it, — it is gone. I could finish this one quickly for the Huzoor if, — if he pleased." There was a catch in his breath. If he could sell something, surely he might keep salvation a little longer. "Can you finish it by Monday evening?" It would mean working extra hours, mean work- ing through the Festival when all the world rested; but what was that in comparison with the reward? Ten minutes afterwards Raheem was putting three rupees into the bag. He had sold out his stock, and, still more wonderful, had a 174 A TOURIST TICKET promise of twenty rupees more on account for future work if he brought the comb punctually on the Monday evening. He had not done such a busi- ness for years. The Eed-offering was secure, and the chances of his hoard reaching the necessary amount for a speedy pilgrimage doubled. The sun shone brighter and purer than ever on the crow^ds assembled in the Eedgah, — a huge en- closure, set with trees and with a mere fagade of a mosque upon its western front, which lay beyond the city w^alls. It shone on no more brilliant figure than Yasmeena's, wlio, in the gayest of new dresses, was sa3dng her prayers effusively ; for if the daily life be doubtful, there is all the more need to have the full advantage of festivals ; a theory which obtains all over the world. But Raheem, despite his green turban of the Passed Pilgrim, despite the three rupees given scrupulously in charity to his neighbour, felt glad to escape, when prayers were over, to his work. And yet the sight was one to stir most hearts : the long lines of men, women, and children, — thousands and thousands and thousands of them, — half-seen amid the shading trees ; the boom of the firework- signal from the eastern gate echoing like a cannon from the wide walls, and ending in a silence like the grave ; fifty thousand living, breathing beings A TOURIST TICKET 175 shoulder to shoulder, and not a sound, not a quiver; only the swish of a bird's wings, only the hush of a breeze among the leaves. Then sud- denly came a great shout as from one throat, and the long lines bent like a field of corn before a might}^ wind. " God is great ; there is no god but God!" And afterwards he had been used, wifeless, childless himself, to wander with kindly eyes among the merry family parties picnicking beneath the trees, watching the little ones' delight over their new toys, the old men's delight over their grandchildren. Then, often, he would hear folk say in a whisper : " Look at his turban ! He is a Hajji ; he has been to Mecca. Look, children, he has found salvation. God grant you to follow in his steps ! " But on this Eed he took off the sign of saintship ere he began work; yet as he worked he shivered as if he were cold without it. The weight of the twenty rupees, however, which, when the comb was finished and taken to the sahib at the hotel, were duly paid into his hand, seemed to make his heart feel lighter. It meant two months' work, and that meant two months' food. Then Hoshyar must have at least five rupees. Still enough would remain to bring the hoard in the brass-bound box within measu- rable distance of salvation, to make it possible per- 176 A TOURIST TICKET haps for him to wear his green turban without a lieart-ache. His present lack of the distinguishing mark seemed to strike even the Englishman's eye, making him say kindly: "T thought you wore the green, and you look the sort certainly; if not I have something which may interest you. Here, Baboo, one of those leaflets, please. If you want to hear more, go to the address of the Agency. I'm off to-night." Raheem, with a salaam, tucked the little printed page into his common-place white headgear and trudged homewards, tired and dispirited. It was too dark to begin work again as a distraction, and he had not had the heart, somehow, to prepare himself a feast as on other Eeds ; so, bethinking him of the leaflet in his turban, he took it out and began to read. It was in the Arabic lettering of the Holy Book he knew so well, and his eyes were keen ; still the wording puzzled him. A pilgrimage to Mecca, — exceptional opportunity, — specially chartered vessel, — Firmdn, — absolute orthodoxy guaranteed, — to start in a month's time, — a limited number of tickets available at Moulvie Futtehdeen's, near the mosque, Imambarah bazaar! Briefly, it was the prospectus of a pilgrimage, which was being organised as a speculation by a well-known firm, whose travelling agent combined the business with a private ventuie of his own in all th : artistic pro- A TOURIST TICKET 177 ductions he could pick up by the way ; whence came the purchase of Raheem's combs. " Thou hast the waybill, I see, Hajji," came a cracked, wistful voice, as an old man who was pass- ing paused at the plinth; an older man even than his looks, for the sparse beard was palpably dyed, and his dress still had a youthful jauntiness about it. His face, however, betrayed him by its wrinkles. He carried a huge dhol (a kind of drum) slung by a cord about his neck, and as he spoke his lissom fingers slid and curved over the stretched goat-skin making a muffled, trembling boom. "Not that it means aught to thee," lie went on in a grumble to match. "Thou hast the ticket to Paradise already. Would I had it also ! I go no nearer it, yet, than damning myself by playing to profligates, and so putting by a nest-egg against my desire. How else, since drum-banging is my trade, and drums ever keep bad company? But I grow old, I grow old. Thus the sin is greater to a soul which should have learned wisdom ; but the pay is less by reason of fingers growing stiff. So I am wicked both ways, and ere next year's pilgrimage this empty maw of a thing may have swallowed me up, body and soul." He gave a more vicious knuckling to the drum, which hummed and boomed in response. "Next year's?" echoed Raheem. " Ay ; it comes every year, they say. There was 178 A TOURIST TICKET a man at Gulanari's, — God knows, neighbour, I must burn if I die in such company, and I so old ! 'Tis the drum drags me to it — seest thou I it will play naught but dance-tunes, though I swear I am weary of them as a lame squirrel with her nest in the sky. I would play hymns, but that I am hindered ; and a man's belly, Hajji Raheem, will not stay empty as a drum and not shrink; so " '^ About the pilgrimage," suggested Raheem, knowing the drum-player's talk of old. " Ay, ay, for sure ! The man — a saint for all his company — there, seest thou, is the pull of it Had I but the green turban, this devil of a drum might take me where it would. But as I was say- ing, this man said it was true, every word. He had been and returned comfortably for the money." "For so little," murmured Raheem, looking once more at the price named. It was far less than what his previous experience told him would be required. '' Little ! " echoed the drum-banger, reproach- fully. "That comes of making decent combs. Didst thou try to wheedle salvation from a thing that hath neither heart nor bowels of compassion, that is naught but a devil of a noise that grows worse instead of better when 'tis whacked, thou wouldst tell a different tale. Well, the cat, sa3^s the proverb, killed seventy rats and went on a A TOURIST TICKET 179 pilgrimage, so I must wait my turn, though if I have not more than seventy sins, may I never phiy a measure again. I swarm w^ith them, neigh- bour, as flies on sugar." He tucked the tempter further under his arm, and moved on, muttering to himself: "And I have but half the money saved, so I am lost if I get not virtue on a re- duction." Raheem sat looking at the paper stupidly, as the mingled growl of the drum and its beater died away. Then suddenly those delicate hands of his reached out swiftly to the brass-bound box. Surely he had so much, or would have so much when those twenty rupees were earned ! So it came to pass in the following days that every minute of the light found him at work on the scented combs, and whenever he finished one, he spent some of his scanty rest in toiling over to the Imambarah bazaar, and paying over its fairly earned price to swell the deposit which se- cured to him one of the limited supply of tickets. Finally on one night, the very night before the day of starting, he packed up the combs complete, took the price of the last one over to the Moulvie, and received in return a neat little book- let full of incomprehensible printed papers. He felt almost afraid of his new possession, with its gay tie to keep everything in its place within the 180 A TOURIST TICKET cover. Supposing he lost something and found himself stranded? He broke out at the thought into a cold sweat, and hunted hurriedly for the extra ticket Avhich the Moulvie had told him was to be used to the junction, since the railway which passed through the town was not on the direct line. He found it, an ordinary third-class ticket, tucked away safely; but the fright made him resolve on keeping it separate and hanging the precious remainder in a bag round his neck. The empty money-bag would do; or better still, there were some bits left yet of Hoshyar's little coat of brocade, and the ticket deserved a fine holder. As he sat stitching away at the familiar frag- ments, however, by the flicker of the cresset, a certain remorse assailed him at having seen so little of his brother during the past month. True, Hoshyar, for various reasons, preferred coming to see him; but ever since the Eed, Raheem had been dimly conscious that something seemed to have come between him and the soul he meant to save. Was it that he knew in his heart it ought to be already saved? There was no longer any need, however, for such questions. So soon as the bag was finished he would go over and find Hoshyar; would find and tell him the great secret, the secret which even Raheem's small store of worldly wisdom had kept jealously. A TOURIST TICKET 181 A sound at the plinth made him look up, and there was Hoshyar himself. Something in his face made the sewer say quickly : " I set aside the money for thee, Hoshyar, though thou camest not. It is here, five rupees." Hoshyar looked at the little pile with a queer expression, and leaving the plinth came within the reach of a whisper. " That will not serve me to-night," he said quietly. "I must have thirty." " Thirty ! " echoed Raheera. " I have it not." ''Thou hast it in the box. See here, brother, thou hast told me always that the money was mine — for my salvation. Well, I need it; I must have it." He spoke almost carelessly as one who has a certainty of succeeding ; and in truth he thought so. Once before Raheem had almost emptied the bag to save him from ruin, and he had calculated deliberately on its being emptied again when he had bought Yasmeena her new dress out of office- funds which would have to be replaced at the end of the month. Raheem Avould not have given a "pice for such a purpose, of course ; but with detec- tion and disgrace staring his brother in the face it would be different. Besides, the money was his, for his salvation. " Listen, Raheem," he went on, summoning up a penitential tone ; but his brother interrupted him swiftly, a sort of dread in his dark, hollow eyes. " There is naught in the box now, 182 A TOURIST TICKET brother," he said, with a catch of fear in his voice. " I have naught but this ; " he laid his hand lightly upon the booklet, and its very touch seemed to bring comfort, for he smiled. " 'Tis my salvation, Hoshyar, for I have given thee my pilgrimage. See, I am making a holder for it. Dost recognise the stuff? 'Tis a bit of the little brocade coat, brother." Hoshyar had caught up the booklet, glanced at it, and now flung it down with a passionate oath. " Salvation, — fool, 'tis perdition ! " Then he laughed suddenly, a loud, bitter laugh. ''That is an end," he said, rising to go. " I only waste time here. Good-bye, Raheem ; 'tis well thou hast a keepsake of me ; thou art not likely to see much of me these seven years to come." "What dost mean, brother?" began the comb- maker, fearfully; but Hoshyar, without another word, turned back to the bazaar. " 'Tis thou that art the fool," said Yasmeena, with a yawn, after Hosliyar had raged for a quarter of an hour of his ill-luck, of his brother's foolery, of her extravagance. "Why didst not take the ticket? It must be worth something, surely?" Tlien a sudden interest came to her languid eyes, where vice itself seemed weary. " Seest tliou, be- loved, I have an idea! Old Deena the drum-player is for ever talking of second-hand salvation. He hath forty rupees saved for it; that would leave A TOURIST TICKET 183 me ten as commission. He need not know; I can say I got it ; we of the bazaar get most things at times in onr profession. And the money Avas thine, — for thy salvation, remember." Hoshyar looked at her as a man looks at a ven- omous snake he has no power to kill. " Lo, Bahoo-ji ! '' said a trollop of a girl, lounging in with a giggle. " Thy brother Raheem asks for thee below. 'Tis the first time, me thinks, he hath entered such a house, for he stands like a child, clasping a brocaded bag as if tliere were pests about, and it held camphor." Yasmeena sat up among her quilts and looked at Hoshyar. " Bid the good creature to the court- yard at the back," she said in a level voice. " Thou wilt like to see him alone, doubtless, Hoshyar. And, Merun, bid some man take him a sherbet; he would be affrighted of a houri. Make it of sandal-essence, girl, and bring it to me to see that it is rightly flavoured. Thou likest not sandal- essence, Hoshyar, 'tis true, but 'tis most refreshing to those who have walked, and thou needst not touch it." Hoshyar's look changed. It was the look now which a bird gives to the snake. Raheem was at the station next day in plenty of time, though, rather to his surprise, he had 184 A TOURIST TICKET slept later than usual that morning, and slept heavily also ; perhaps because he seemed not to have a care left in the world after Hoshyar had retracted all his reproaches and bidden him go in peace. Peace, — what else could remain in a man's heart after that renunciation in the dark deserted mosque upon the homeward way, which had left Raheem's conscience clear at last, left him without a wedding-garment and yet content? And now, with his ticket to the junction duly snipped, his bundle in one hand and the other assuring itself of the booklet's safety in the brocade bag, he passed down the platform in the rear of the rush from the waiting-shed, looking diffidently for a seat in the close-packed carriages, which with their iron bars and struggling occupants looked like cages of wild beasts. " Here, neighbour Hajji, here ! " cried a cracked, familiar voice full of elation, full of importance. " Now that demon of a drum hath gone there is room for a saint or two. He is Hajji already, my masters, and will be a good companion. But 'tis done cheaper nowadays, and I, I swear, have it cheaper than ye all. How much, is a secret ; but the Lord kept his eye on old Deena." So he went on boastfully, till even his voice was drowned in the great shout which went up as the train moved on. He was back on his own good fortune, A TOURIST TICKET 185 however, when the hundred and fifty and odd pas- sengers in their carriage, separated into scores by iron bars, had subsided into a mere babel of speak- ing voices. " No cover, say you ? " he replied resentfully to a captious criticism on his ticket. " What good is a cover ? Dew is pretty, but it don't quench thirst ; so I, being a pilgrim, drink plain w\ater. My ticket will take me as far as thine." Raheem, crouched up between the drum-player and a fat butcher, heard vaguely, and fingered the outline of his treasure in its bag of brocade, feel- ing glad he had so honoured it; for it took him further than Mecca, further than this world. The Gates of Pearl were set ajar for him, and he could see through them to the glory and glitter of Para- dise. And so, after a rush through a long stretch of desert sand, the train slackened, rousing him from a dream. This must be the junction, and he must take out the other ticket; but not while a score of folk were struggling over him in their rush to be out first. He was out last, of course, and had barely time to snatch the booklet from its bag, ere an official warned him to hurry up. So panting, confused, his bundle in one hand, his treasure in the other, he sped over the bridge to the next platform. " Tickets, tickets, all tickets I " came another 186 A TOURIST TICKET alien voice, and he paused to obey, setting his bundle on the ground in order to have both hands for his task. But the opening of the cover was to him as the closing of the Book of Life ; for it was empty. "Pass on, pass on!" came the not unkindly voice of command once more. "Out of the way, you there, and don't stand like a fool. You've dropped it likely ; run back and see ; there's time yet. " So over the bridge again went Raheem, in fran- tic hope, back on his steps again in frantic despair. "I had it, Huzoor, indeed I had it! Here is the cover !" The ticket-collector shook his head, and Raheem, with a dazed look, turned away quietly. " Trra ! " came the voice of the drum -player sen- tentiously and safely from the window of a car- riage. " He hath lost the inside ; that comes of a cover. Well, well, prayers are over; up with the carpet ! But he is Hajji already, my masters, so 'tis not as though it were one of us sinners." " Keep thy sins to thyself, chatterer," retorted his next neighbour tartly, as the train moved on. " We be virtuous men enough." " If you haven't money to go on, you must go back. The booking-office is over there, and the up-mail will be in in a few hours." This official view of the question, given by the A TOURIST TICKET 187 authorities as they gathered round the disappointed pilgrim, was simplicity itself, even to Raheem. He never thought of connecting his ticketless cover with Deena's coverless ticket. The fact that his chance was gone absorbed him utterly; he had lost salvation, for the very thought of taking back his gift to Hoshyar was impossible to him. That was the outcome of it all. So he sat patiently waiting for his train to come in; sat patiently, after he had found a place in it, wait- ing for it to go on, so absolutely absorbed in his loss, that he did not even hear his neighbours' comments on the delay. "Line clear at last!" said the guard joyfully to the driver as he came out of the telegraph-ofhce, where but one instant before the welcome signal had echoed. "Steam away all you know, sonny, and make up lost time. I promised my girl to be punctual; there's a hop on at her house." So, with a shriek, they were off for a twenty- mile scamper across the desert; out with a bump over the points, out with a whistle past the last signal, out with a flash by the telegraph-posts. But something else was flashing by the posts also ; for a message came clicking into the station they had left not a minute ago, "- Mistake — line blocked — down-maiiy "My God!" said the station-master in a thick 188 A TOURIST TICKET voice, standing up blindly. He was an old Mutiny man, but he was white as a sheet. "It isn't our fault, father," began his son, a slim young fellow, showing mixed blood. "D n it all, sir," shouted the other furiously, " what does it matter whose fault it is ? What's to be done ? " Nothing could be done, save to telegraph back quick as kind nature could carry it : " Line blocJced — up-mail also.'' Fateful words I The line blocked both ways, and not a signal for twenty miles! Half an hour of warning at the least, and nothing to be done; nothing save to accept the disaster! "Bring up the relief-engine sharp. Smith," said the Traffic Superintendent at the terminus when, ere a minute was past, the hopeless news reached him. "Graham, run over for Dr. Westlake, for Harrison, too, if he's there; splints, bandages, dressers, and all that. Davies, wire back to the other end to send what they can from their reserve." And so, swiftly as hands and brains could com- pass it, two more engines fled shrieking into the growing dusk of evening behind those two, the down-mail and the up-mail, coming nearer and nearer to each other on the single line. "Twenty minutes since they started, about," said one man, who was standing with a watch in his hand, in curiously quiet tones. "It must be A TOURIST TICKET 189 soon now; and there is a curve about the middle. I hope to God there is no friend of mine in either ! " "Royston's in the down," replied another studi- ously even voice. "He was going to see his wife. But the firsts are well back ; it's the thirds, poor devils " He paused, and the others nodded. The thirds, doubtless! And in one of them, far forward, crouched Raheem, staring out into the calm dusk, absorbed in the horror of going back, going back to die before he had saved his own soul ! So, suddenly, through and above the rush and the roar and the rattle that he scarcely heard, came a new sound forcing him to listen. It was a quiver- ing, clamorous, insistent whistle. It brought no recognition to his ignorance, or to the ignorance of those around him, but far back in the first- class carriages white faces peered out into the gloom, and foreign voices called to each other: "Danger whistle — what's up?" Still, it was a strange, disturbing sound with a strange echo. And was that an echo of the rush, and the roar, and the rattle? Raheem sat up quickly. Was it the end of all things? Why had they struck him — Who — Hoshyar! Then thought ended in a scream of pain. 190 A TOURIST TICKET " There is a man caught by the feet under that wheel," said Dr. Westlake not many minutes after, as he came out of the hideous pile of wreckage all grimed and smirched. " He is breathing yet, so have him out sharp. We may save him, but these others " He passed on to seek work significantly. And so Raheem, stunned and with both feet crushed to a jelly, was dug out; the only man left alive in the forward third-class carriage of the up mail. He was still unconscious when it came to be his turn for the doctors in the crowded hospital. " Badly nourished," said Dr. Westlake, " but it is his only chance. Harrison, the euca- lyptus sawdust, please ; it is a good case for it, and we shall be short of dressings." So two days afterwards Raheem, recovering from a slight concussion of the brain, found himself in a strangely comfortable bed with a curious hump of a thing over his feet under the coverlet. He did not know that there were no feet there ; that they had both been amputated at the ankle, and that he was a cripple for life. And there was no reason why he should find it out, since the sawdust did its work without more ado, much to the doctor's delight, who, as he took Raheem's temperature, talked of first intents and septic dressings to his assistant. In fact, they were both A TOURIST TICKET 191 SO pleased that it came upon them by surprise one day, when Raheem, with clasped hands, asked when he was to die. '' Die ? Rubbish ! " said Dr. Westlake, cheer- fully. " Not from this, at any rate, and we will do what we can for the lungs afterwards." Raheem's face did not lose its anxiety. " And when, if the Huzoor will say, shall I be able to walk again ? " As he lay in the comfortable bed he had been making up his mind to sacrifice all comfort, to leave life behind him, and start on foot for death, with his face towards Mecca. " Walk ? " echoed the doctor, with a significant look at his assistant. Then he sat down on the edge of the cot, and told the truth. Raheem heard it, looking incredulously at the cradle ; and then suddenly he interrupted a plati- tude about its being better to be a cripple than to die, with an eager question : " Then the Huzoor means that I shall never be able to Avalk again ? " The doctor nodded. " May God reward the Huzoor for ever and ever," said Raheem in a whisper, raising both hands in a salute ; and his face was one radiant smile. Dr. Westlake looked at his assistant as they passed on to the next cot. " They are an incom- prehensible people," he said in rather an injured 192 A TOURIST TICKET tone. "I never expected to hear a man thank me rapturously for cutting off both his feet." He did not know that cripples are especially exempted from the duty of pilgrimage, and that the patient was repeating his version of the text: "It is better to enter halt into life, than, having two feet, to be cast into hell." THE KING'S WELL This is one of poor Craddock's many stories which he told me when we were in the wilderness together, engaged — like another Moses and Aaron — in preparing a way for a Western people across the desert, and dividing its sand waves by a path- way of red-brick ballast edged with steel. In other words, in making the railway on which he after- wards met his death in trying to prevent a survival of past ages from being in the permanent way of civilisation. We used to sit at the door of my little tent — two Enorlishmen adrift on a sand sea — and I used to listen while he talked ; for the life he had led made him the best of company, and his combined igno- rance and knowledge of the East was a perpetual surprise. Some of his stories were grossly, frankly impossible, but this one, despite its strangeness, I believed unhesitatingly ; as any one would have done who had seen, as I saw, the indescribable world-tarnish which long years of loose living brings X93 194 THE king's well to the kindliest face, leave it clear, bright, and eager to a rejuvenescence of love, and pity, and pain. The sun had dipped below the rising rim of the great sand-circle whose centre we were, but the sky was still a cloudless expanse of yellow radiance dazzling to the eyes from sheer excess of light. There was nothing far or near to differentiate one part of earth or heaven from another save the thin red line of ridiculous little flags we had been plant- ing out during the day; and I remember thinking that I could not foi- the life of me tell the exact spot where, five minutes before, I had seen the last curved glint of the sun disappear — for one bit of horizon seemed to the full as bright as another. "Looks like the yaller bottle in the cliemist's shop; don't it, sir?" remarked Craddock cheerfully — " leastways, as I used to think Avhen I was a boy. Lordy ! Lordy ! boys is — is boys, I do assure you. Old Pargiter's shop to our village was over against the public, sir, next the church, an' comin' 'ome o' evenin's from the catechism, sir, it seemed Je-rew- salem the Golden. Expect it was the anathysts, an' sapphiras, an' rubies, an' them sort o' stones did it, for boys — is boys, you see, sir." He gave an apolo- getic smear to his corn-coloured moustache as if to wipe away the flavour of his own sentiment — the wrist-smear of those whose hands are habitually soiled. THE king's well 195 " It is like a topaz seen against the light," I re- plied, accepting both confidence and excuse with the calm indifference which always encouraged Crad- dock to further indulgence. " I don't think I ever saw it quite so dazzlingly clear, did you?" He paused awhile, and the blue eyes, bloodshot by exposure to unspeakable lights and unspeakable darknesses of all sorts and kinds, grew a trifle absent. "I danno but what I 'ave, sir; leastways it looks more light-like from the bottom o' a well. As, savin' your presence, sir, is only nat'ral." " From the bottom of a well? " I echoed. '' When was that, Craddock ? you never told me that yarn." He paused again. "No, sir. It ain't a pleasing interlood, for 'twas in the Mutiny time, sir, w'en we was all mad devils, black an' white — Avhite an' black ," and then suddenly, as I have said, some past pity and passion and pain seemed to come back upon him with a rush, so that he sat staring into that cloudless sky as if he saw a vision, and his voice came at last half to himself, " By the Lord as made me I dunno which was worse, black nor white, white nor black ; yet it was white as did for me, Nathaniel James Craddock, at the bottom o' the King's Well." Then he was silent again, and I sat silent too, for there never was any use in pumping Craddock. His fund of experiences was too vast for 196 THE king's well you to be sure of bringing what you wanted to the surface. So, after a time, he began again deviously : "Not as wot it was, so to speak, a well at all, but what they calls, in the lingo, a hawly — a thing, you know, sir, with flights o' steps a-leadin' down to the bowels of the yerth — right down to the water as maybe a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet below the surface, as the sayin' is, sir. It was just a large, round, black spot o' ink, that was wot the water was, an' standin' on the stone edge you could see right up the stairs to a round yaller spot of Je-rewsalem the Golden. Two spots there were, sir, owin' to there being two flights o' steps, an' many a time as I lay like a rabbit in 'is burrow down by the water I'd tell myself luck was in there bein' two — two whites to one black, yet after all it was white as did the business for me, sir, at the bottom o' the King's hawli/.'' " You must have been very young in Mutiny time?" I remarked in casual aid to his lagging confidence. " One and twenty, sir — more by token I come to man's estate, as the sayin' is, at the bottom o' that there well. Lordy I I can see it now I A sort o' mist o' light from Je-rewsalem above a-fadin' away half down the stairs, and leavin' the rest to get darker an' darker to the black spot o' water; THE king's well 197 but it had a glint o' light on it too that come, God knows how, when the sun was low." As he spoke I had noticed a curious change in his voice ; a sort of refining process, as if he were going back to a self that was less rough, less common, and the change was still more marked when, after a pause, he began again : " It was an awful hot year, sir, just a white flame of heat — a burning fiery fur- nace ; but there wasn't none of us come through it praisin' an' magnifyin' — leastways I didn't, but then I was a wild lot. Run away from home, sir ; that is how I came to be in the country, knowing a good bit of the lingo for a youngster. Served my way out before the mast, and then backed my luck. And won it too ; for a Rajah fellow paid me to wrestle with his men, and play monkey tricks. Lordy ! I remember the first time I got in grips with the champion, and he stood head down expectin' me to go on buttin' like a goat. There wasn't one of them could touch me, sir, but that wasn't no protection when the time came. It's an odd sort of thing, I do assure you, for a man who knows he could lick every one he sees, to be runnin' like a hare for dear life, hidin' by day an' circumventin' the villages by night; but that was how it was for three weeks before I come plumb — as the sayin' is — on the King's Well. It was right in the worst country, and I was foot- 198 THE king's well sore, and stumblin' like as if I were in liquor with the fever. A queer sort o' place it was as I saw it first in the dawn which come — as the dawns had a trick o' doin' in those times — a deal too soon for Nathaniel James. It was right in the open in the middle o' a lot o' broken bricks and little mounds o' mud — miles and miles of them it had seemed to me, footsore an' stumblin'; for the place had been a big city, so I'm told, sir, in the old times. And now it was nothin' but a plain o' broken brick an' graves, except for a cluster of tall old liouses with the usual mud-huts a-crowdin' up round them. And I knew from what I'd heard that the biggest murdering villains o' the lot lived in them houses, poor budmarsh^ Mohammedans, proud as Lucifer, a-screwing the tails o' the ryots for a livin' — though why ryots, sir, is hard to say, for a more peaceable lot o' able-bodied men and women never was. Well, there I was in the w^orst place I could have chosen, and the dawn comin' sudden all in a blaze. Then, right at my feet I sees the hawli/ ; just a hole o' broken masonry, an' the steps leading down like a rabbit burrow. They didn't seem to be much used that side furthest from the village among the graves, for the drifted sand was a-lying thick on the topmost steps, and I didn't see no footmarks to speak of, only a queer sort o' track that might 'ave bin a man's and mightn't. 1 Bad living. THE king's well 199 Anyhow I thought I'd risk it, seeing as if any one come down the one stair, I could hoof it up the other, an' there's generally a lot o' little arched recesses at the bottom o' hawlies where I could lie low. So I chanced it. An' Lordy ! wasn't it cool as I hobbled down them vaulted steps. 'Twas a fine place, sir, when all was said an' done. Half-a- dozen steps or so, and then a landin', as the sayin' is, with a sort o' travellers' rest on either side ; but I went right down to the bottom, so as to see what sort o' trap I'd got into. An' I found it none so bad, for there wasn't no passage round as there is in most haivlies^ but only a' arched room on either side my stairs ending sheer in the drop o' ink which filled up a round sort o' well that was vaulted over up in the dark somewhere. So there wasn't no way of getting from one stair to the other but by a leap such as there wasn't one but Nathaniel James in the country side as could leap it; an' that would give me time. Still I do assure you, sir, it takes the spunk out of a fellow to go skulkin' round for three weeks with your life in your hand in baggy silk trousers an' a dressin' gown — for I'd put on what they calls a Mllit as the Rajah give me for smashing up another Rajah's champion — that's a dress o' state, sir, an' Mllit or not, it nigh killed me, for it was chock full o' embroidery an' that hot; but beggars mustn't be 200 THE king's well choosers, and that night I run off from the Palace it was all I could lay hands on. An' did its work too — just to give what them surveyor chaps calls the proper contour, as the sayin' is. Anyhow, what with the stain, a deal more knowledge of the lingo than I have now, sir, an' through my being con- siderable stronger than the only two fellars as caught me napping, here I was in the King's hawly watching them two round spots o' Je-rewsalem like a man in his grave a-waitin' the last trump ; an' the first pair o' feet I saw on the stairs opposite set me a-tremblin' like a ferreted rabbit, even thougli I knew that wot with the stairs, an' the drop o' ink, I'd 'ave a good five minutes' start. But then I heard the jingles on them, sir, and knew it was only a woman from the village comin' down to fill her water-pot. There was a lot o' them come chatterin' and laughin' during the day, but always down the further stair. And Lordy ! it was cool after the fiery furnace ! I had a mouthful or two o' corn I'd looted^ so when dusk came it seemed to me as if I couldn't move on — small blame to me, sir, seein' how cool an' quiet it was, and I so close on done. But just as I was a-callin' myself names for bein' lazy, come a footfall on my stair. Now you know, sir, them haiolies bein' arched an' all that, is awful echo-ey places, an' I do assure you I made up my mind a man was coming down, THE "KING'S WELL 201 slow and deliberate-like. I looked out, an' couldn't see nothing, but there was the footfall just like a procession; an' then somethin' let loose a bellow, and I felt inclined to cut. But then I thought I'd wait a bit seein' I was stronger nor most, an' the drop o' ink was handy for a corpse. So I waited until the bellow come again; an' this time — bein' close as it were, an' out o' the echo — I knew my friend, for I do assure you, sir, it was nothin' but the biggest bull toad you ever see, coming flop, flop down the stair for his evenin' drink. A great green thing with a yaller waist- coat as sat up on the last step looked at me quite proud-like. Lordy ! how I laughed ! It was the first laugh I'd laughed for three week, an' it done me good; that an' seeing the bull toad go douse into the water like a man, for it set me a-longin' for a swim too, an' when I come out o' that drop o' cold ink I was a new man. Slept like a babby in its cradle and woke to see through the maze o' arches a woman on the t'other side a-rinsin' out her brass pot quite calm-like. She was a-takin' his breakfast to her man in the fields, I expect, for there was a pile o' them flapjacks on a platter beside her. I dun'no, sir, if it was' the sleep, or the sight o' food and me ravenin' wolves, or just sheer devilry — for I was a wild lot — but I out o' my rabbit 'utch an' let loose a yell. You may 202 THE king's well well call 'em hawlies, sir, for I do assure you I felt kind o' queer myself liaviii' made all that noise. She gave no look, but let loose another yell of her own as she turned tail and ran up them stairs like a lamplighter. It seemed to me as if she was callin' on ' the King — the King,' but I didn't stop to think. Now was my time. I was over the drop o' ink clear on to the second step in my hurry, before she was half-way up to Je-rewsalem, an' I was back again to the 'utch with the flapjacks making ready to run if need be for dear life, when I heard the silver tinkle again an' women's voices. Every word, sir, I could hear through its bein' a baivly^ an' I heard her " — he paused sharply, waited a second, and began again — " There was two on them now, disputin' an' half-laughin', half-cryin'; one was pullin' the other an' tellin' her she was a fool ; there wasn't no King, more's the jjity, and if there was she wasn't afraid seein' he was her hdpddda ; — that's ancestors, sir — but the t'other wouldn't hear of it, an' kept sayin' 'twas well enough for some folk as pretended wisdom, but every one knew the King's footmark on the stair an' had heard his voice after dusk. My friend the bull toad, thinks I, feelin' considerable easier in my mind, for I knew enough o' their ways you see, sir, to know as there wasn't much chance o' any one else comin' down my stairs THE king's well 203 if a ghost lived there ; so I listened to the argufying quite interested-like. But it wasn't no good — the half-laughin' voice hadn't a chance even when it grew sober, and cried shame on bein' frightened at the spirit of the good King, who every day come down to his hawly all alone, so that any pore soul as wanted justice might go down the other stair and tell him what was amiss across the black water with no fear. ' If he was only there now instead o' bein' where saints are,' I heard her say, ' I'd go down this instant an' tell him to stop it all — but there's no one to listen nowadays — no one.' An' with that she come tinkling down the steps alone — a tall girl, sir — but, there — 'tain't no good de- scribin' her, for I never see her but in half-light till Well I she just rinsed out her pot like the rest o' them and filled it; but afore she went she stood so Avith it on her head on the t'other side o' the black water for a moment, an' said quite loud an' bold-like, ' Salaam Mdhd7'(tj.' ^ " I was that wild sort, as I might have given a bellow just to frighten her for the fun o' the thing, but I kept somehow a-thinkin' o' what she had said of the old King a-trailin' down them steps in his royal robes, and listenin' in that bawli/ to all the pore folks' troubles, an' a-promisin' never to forsake them but to bring justice with him down the stairs 1 Greeting or peace to the King. 204 to the end o' all things. Not that he was an old King, sir, as I found out afterwards, but a young sort o' saint, as got killed afore his time. You see I heard a lot o' talk from the women as came down in companies, skeery, and just in a mortal hurry to fill their jars and git home because of the girl as said she had heard the King in the daytime. So that it came to me, sir, that I couldn't do better nor lie hidden a day or two and get strong where I was, for there wasn't no manner o' hurry. Like as not I'd get killed somehow before I got to the river, and I couldn't help anyways, seein' as I couldn't look to get into any o' the places where we was holdin' out against the black devils. An' that evenin', when the old bull toad come down for his swim, I just laughed again quite light-hearted, and says as she said, ' Salaam Mdhdrdj I ' '' Well, she was the only one as come alone after that, but come she did, an' every time she come she would stand an' say loud-like, but a bit wistful, ' Salaam Mdhdrdj.' "She was a tall girl, but there — it ain't no use describing her. " So what with the women coming all together I didn't have much chance o' flapjacks, and what with the village bein' walled in an' full of them mur- derin' nobility, I wasn't, so to say, successful in tliievin', an' at last I see it was time to move on. THE king's well 205 A bad time, too ; for I heard from the women's talk as there was crowds o' sepoys about a-screwin' the pore folks' tails, an' I heard her say to 'em once as it were their fault. ' If they wasn't so frightened o' the King,' said she, ' maybe he'd come back and give 'em justice.' An' that evenin' when she come down she stood so with her arms spread out lookin' up the stair and said again, bowing down after their fashion, ' Salaa7n Mdhdrdj, your slave waits ! ' " There was a pile o' flapjacks on the platter beside her water-pot, an' maybe it was the sight o' them, and knowin' they w^ould be Avorth gold to me, or maybe because it was my last time o' askin', or maybe the devil that was in me, but I just out o' my rabbit 'utch, in my baggy silk trousers and dressing-gown — in the whole blessed killit^ sir — and stood quite still on the steps. It was most dark, you see, sir, an' the contours was correc', so 'twas no wonder she give a little cry, half-glad, half- afraid, as she come up from her salaam. I guessed she'd run and leave me the flapjacks, but she wasn't that sort. A tall girl — but there, it ain't no use describin'. Well afore I could think wdiat to do she was at it ; such a tale o' wrong, sir, not about herself, though she was one of those pore souls as is born widows, but about Lord knows what of the people. An' I listened. Did you ever listen, sir, to a woman's voice just chock full o' confidence in 206 THE king's well your bein' a good sort ? Well, I did ; an' I dunno how 'twas, sir, but the confidence was catchin'. I was a reckless, bold chap, you see, an' I knew she had grit, so the next moment I was over that circle o' black water and beside her. She give another little cry, but, my Lord ! she had grit, for she drew back quick against the wall and thrust out her hands to keep me off. " ' The King ! the King ! ' she said, ' I thought you was the King ! ' " An' with that I caught her by the hands. ' I'm not the King,' says I, ' but don't you be afraid, I'm only a pore man as won't hurt you.' " ' I'm not afraid,' she says, tryin' to make believe. 'You come down the King's stairs o' justice,' she said, 'an' that's enough.' " Then somehow, I dunno how it was, sir, but all in a moment it come home to me that I'd go my whole pile on her, an' I drop her hands an' I says : " ' Yes ! I come down the King's stairs, and I'll be a King to you for justice if you'll be a Queen to me.' " And by God ! sir, she was. " So there we were, lookin' into each other's eyes and sajdn' nothin', till she gave a queer little laugh. " ' Why,' she says, ' you're a wliite man ! ' and with that she lay her finger quick and confident on my wrist ; an' sure enough, what with the swim THE king's well 207 and the dark it were white indeed — white an' shivery, too, with the touch somehow, so that I couldn't but keep her hand so and say : '' * Yes, my dear, Fm white and you're black ; I'm a man and you're a woman, but it shan't make no odds. I'm King and you're Queen in this here haiuly^ and there shan't be nothing but justice atween us, so help me, God ! ' " An' there wasn't, sir. No ! though we went our whole pile on each other, I do assure you, sir." The assurance was needless ; one look at his face was enough — that world- worn face with its blood- shot eyes, fixed on the dazzling glory of the sky as if they saw a vision. "■ I used to see her first against Je-rewsalem," he went on in a lower tone. " Then I could hear her come down the stairs ever so soft to stand close to the water's edge and cry, ^Salaam Mdhdrdj' — for she called me that, just for fun, you see, sir. An' there weren't much wistfulness in her voice, sir, mostly laughter, an' somethin' better nor laughter, when I come leapin' across that drop o' ink to stand beside her for a little, an' tell her — what folks say to each other Avhen they've set their whole pile on each other, you know, sir. For she wouldn't never come down the King's stairs, sayin' it was unlucky an' Avhat not. Excuses, sir, but I understood 'em and I didn't want her, for you see 208 THE king's well it was justice between us I'd sworn, and I was a wild lot. She had told her father — a blind old Brahman, sir, awful holy, and nigh bedridden too — and he sent word to say stop where I was. The villagers wouldn't venture down the stairs either, and if they did wouldn't harm me, being, as I say, sir, as peaceable a lot o' able-bodied men as ever was. But the maraudin', murderin' crcAv in the big hawelis — that's houses, sir — was har- bouring those mutinous devils of Jack Pandies, and playin' high old Tommy for miles round, so I'd better lie low till justice came ; as it 'd sure to do at last, seein' that the Lord Avas King. They talks a sight, sir, about the heathen and their ignorance, but I do assure you she knew a deal more nor me ; Avhat with being of a king's family an' havin' a bedridden saint of a Brahman for a father. An' they mayn't know much book-learnin' p'r'aps, but some of 'em knows hoAV to make a man put his whole pile on them. And she had grit, my Lord ! she had grit ! " Yet there Avas a catch in her breath that evenin' Avhen I Avas nigh mad Avith fear, lest she had come to harm because it Avas so late, and hearing her footfall on the stair I leapt over, and nearly fell back into the ink-pot through seein' her in a man's dress. '' ' I'd rather you didn't come if there's danger,' THE king's well 209 said I quite sharp-like, when she told me the sepoys was setting watch because folk said the white soldiers were a-coming. ' Don't ! I can't stand it here in the dark, idle, thinkin' o' you God knows how. I'll fend for myself quite well.' " An' with that she laughed low with the little catch in her breath still, and come a bit closer so as I could slip my arm round her a little ; an' by that I knew 'twas more danger than she let on — for she was not that sort. " ' Now don't you come,' says I, as I might be the King himself givin' orders, ' I won't have it. If the soldiers is comin', they'll bring justice, an' if not a little starvin' won't hurt me, for I'm gettin' quite strong again.' An' so I was, sir, what with the rest and the food an' the happiness. For I do assure you, sir, on my solemn oath, that I was happy at the bottom o' that King's hawly. Happy? By the Lord ! sir, 'twas enough to make a man happy to see the look she gave me, as much as to say I was strong enough and everything enough for her ; for though it was nigh dark I could see her face from its bein' so close to mine — she bein' a tall girl — but there, it ain't no use describin'. There don't seem much to say, sir, when it comes to lookin' at each other that way, an' so we stood silent a bit, till sudden I hear the old bull toad at his jinks again, and partly to ease off the sort o' 210 THE king's well burstin' feelin' at my heart I cries with a laugh, ' There's the King ! ' " But she just lays her head clown, pugree an' all, on my shoulder and says with a sob, ' No, here's the King. The King as I come to for justice.' He paused for so long, that something of the excitement which had been thrilling in his tones seemed to pass into my mind, and I felt almost a shock when he went on quite calmly: " Well, it was arranged that she wasn't to come back for three days onless somethin' turned up. I would have it so, an' she give in at last. It was mortal dull without her, and I made up my mind when I see her again to tell her I'd back my luck once more, and fight my way safe some- how. Then when it was over I'd come back for her ; for it didn't seem it could go against me as I sat down by the drop o' ink a-lookin' up to Je-rewsalem over the way, and a-wonderin' when I should see her on the top step a-comin' for jus- tice to her King. "Well, she come at last. It were the second day, I think, sir, and it took me all of a sudden, for, owin' to its bein' a hawly in the bowels in the yerth you couldn't hear nothin' of what was goin' on up top. I Avas sittin' lookin' over the way when I hear a noise behind an' a voice, ' Md- hdrdj ! Mdhdrdj ! ' THE king's well 211 "It was she, sir, clown tlie King's steps in the man's dress, an' behind her, my God ! not black devils but white ones with red coats an' set bayonets ! — ' Mdhdrdj ! Mdhdrdj ! Justice ! Justice ! ' "I was out, sir, tearing up to meet her in a second, shoutin' in English to hold hard — that she was a woman ; but them cursed haivly echoes mixed it all up, an' the cursed baggy trousers and things, didn't give me no chance of a-hearin' through its bein' half-dark ^'^ Mdhdrdj! Mdhdrdj!' "I heard it plain enough, God knows. I hear it now sometimes, sir, an' I see her face as I saw it for the only time in the light afore I fell over her dead body a-lying on the steps half-way down the stairs o' justice. " They told me after, as I had finished the cry for her many and many a time whilst I lay in 'orspital — for they'd struck me playful-like before they found out I was white, an' I took mortal bad ; but there wasn't much use in justice then for none o' us. An' I never could tell quite how it happened, for when I went back the village was just bricks, and the corpses lyin' about thick, unburied. They had had a hard fight as they told me, had the Tommies, an' bein' fresh from Cawnpore was keen — as was nat'ral — an' she was 212 THE king's well in man's clothes, you see, when she come flyin down the steps o' justice calling for the King." ****** He sat silent, looking out to the now darkening sky where the light had faded save in the widen- ing rays spreading out from the grave of the sun. And down one of them, as down a golden staircase, I seemed to see a flying figure with outstretched arms pass to Jerusalem the Golden with the cry '' Mdhdrdj ! Mdlidrdj!'' But Craddock was already clearing his throat suggestively for the usual glass of whisky and water ; yet ere he drank it his eyes wandered absently, helplessly, to the horizon, and I heard him mutter to himself : '' An' so 'twas Avhite, not black, as did for Na- thaniel James Craddock at the bottom o' the King's Well." And as I looked at him drink-sodden and reck- less, I understood that when the time came he too would have the right to pass down the King's stair seeking justice — and finding it. UMA HIMAYUTEE Uma-devi was sitting on a heap of yellow wheat, which showed golden against the silvery surface of her husband's threshing-floor. She was a tall woman, of about five and twenty, with a fair, fine-cut face, set in a perfect oval above the mas- sive column of her throat. She was a Brahmani of the Suruswutee tribe — in other words, a mem- ber of perhaps tiie most ancient Aryan colony in India, which long ages back settled down to culti- vate the Hurreana, or "green country"; so called, no doubt, before its sacred river, the Suruswutee, lost itself in the dry deserts west of Delhi ; a mem- ber, therefore, of a community older than Brahman- ism itself, and which clings oddly to older faiths, older ways, and older gods. So Uma-devi, who was on the rack of that jealousy which comes to most women, whether they be ignorant or cultured, had the advantage over most of the latter : she could look back through the ages to a more in- spiring and stimulating progenitrix than Mother Eve. For, despite the pharisaical little hymn of 213 214 UMA HIMAVUTEE Western infancy bidding us thank goodness for our birth and inheritance of knowledge, one can scarcely be grateful for a typical woman simpering over an apple, or subsequently sighing over the difficulties of dress. The fact being that our story of Creation only begins when humanity, fairly started on the Rake's Progress, felt the necessity for bolstering up its self-respect by the theory of original sin. But this woman could dimly, through the numb pain of her heart, feel the influence of a nobler Earth-mother in Uma Himavutee — Uma her name- sake — Uma of the Himalayas, birthplace of all sacred things — Uma of the sunny yet snowy peaks, emblem at once of perfect wifehood, motherhood, and that mystical virginity which, in Eve-ridden faiths, finds its worship in Mariolatry. That she could even dimly recognise the beauty of this conception came partly from the simple yet ascetic teachings of her race ; partly because there are some natures. East and West, which turn in- stinctively to Uma Himavutee, and this Avoman among yellow corn was of that goodly company. Yet a sharp throb of sheer animal jealousy — the jealousy which in most civilised communities is considered a virtue when sanctified by the bonds of matrimony — seemed to tear her heart as her hands paused in her patient darning of gold-col- UMA HIMAVUTEE 215 ourecl silk on dull madder-red stuff, and lier eyes sought the figure of a man outlined against the dull red horizon. It was Shiv-deo, her husband, returning from his work in the fields. She folded up her work methodically, leaving the needle with its pennant of floss still twined deftly in and out of the threads as a mark to show where to take up the appointed pattern once more. For Uma-devi's work was quaintly illustrative of her life, being done from the back of the stuff and going on laboriously, conscientiously, trustfully, without reference to the unseen golden diaper slowly growing to beauty on the other side of the cloth. That remained as a reward to tired eyes and fin- gers when the toil was over, and the time came to piece the whole web into a garment — a wed- ding veil, perchance, for her daughter, had she had one. But Uma was childless. Yet there was no reproach, no discontent in her husband's fine beardless face as he came up to her ; for he happened — despite the barbarous marriage customs of his race — to love his wife as she loved him. They were a handsome pair truly, much of an age, tall, strong, yet of a type as refined-looking as any in the world. At their feet lay the heaps of wheat; beyond them, around them, that limit- 216 UMA HIMAVUTEE less plain which once seen holds the imagination captive for ever whether the recollection be of a sea of corn, or, as now, of stretches of brown earth bare of all save the dead sources of a gath- ered harvest. To one side, a mile or so away, the piled mud village was girdled by a golden haze of dust which sprang from the feet of the homing cattle. '' I saw one with thee but now," he said, as half-mechanically he stooped to gather up a hand- ful of the wheat and test it between finger and thumb. " Gossip Radha by her bulk — and by thy face, wife. What new crime hath the village committed ? What new calamity befallen the part-owners ? Sure, even her tongue could say naught against the harvest ! " " Naught ! thanks be to the Lord ! " replied Uma briefly. "Now, since thou hast come to watch, I will go bring the water and see Baha-jee ^ hath his dinner. I will return ere long and set thee free." "Thou hast a busy life," he said suddenly as if the fact struck him newly. " There are too few of us for the work." The woman turned from him suddenly to look out to the horizon beyond the level fields. " Ay ! there are too few of us," she echoed i Honorific title for a father. TJMA HIMAVUTEE 217 with an effort, ''but I will be back ere the light goes." Too few ! Yes, too few. She had known that for some time ; and if it were so in their yonth and strength, what wonld it be in the old age which must come upon them as it had upon the Baba-jee, who, as she passed in to the wide court- yard in order to fetch the big brazen water vessel, nodded kindly, asking where his son had lingered. ''He watchss the corn heaps till I return. It must be so, since there are so few of us." The nod changed to a shake, and the cheerful old voice trembled a little over the echo. "Ay! there are few of us." All the way down to the shallow tank, set, as it were, in a crackle-edge of a sun-baked mud, the phrase re-echoed again and again in Uma- devi's brain till it seemed written large through her own eyes in the faces of the village women passing to and fro with their water-pots. They knew it also ; they said it to themselves, though as yet none had dared — save Mai Radha, with her cowardly hints — to say to her that the time had come when the few ought to be made more. Ah I if Shiv-deo's younger brother had not died be- fore his child-wife was of age to be brought home, this need not have been. Though, even then, a virtuous woman for her husband's sake ought 218 UMA HIMAVUTEE Uma-devi, clown by the water-edge, as if to escape from her own thoughts, turned hastily to spread the corner of her veil over the wide mouth of the brazen pot and with a smaller cup began to ladle the muddy water on to the strainer. But the thought was passionate, insist- ent. Ought ! What was the use of prating about ought ? She could not, she would not let Shivo take another woman by the hand. How could they ask her, still young, still beautiful, still beloved, to give him another bride ? Why, it would be her part to lift the veil from the new beauty, as she lifted it from the now brimming water-pot — so Uma Himavutee ! what did she see ? Her own face reflected in the brass-ringed water, as in a mirror set in a golden frame ! Clear as in any mirror her own beauty — the lips Shivo had kissed — the eyes which held him so dear; all, all, un- changed. Ah ! but it was impossible I That was what the pious old folk preached — what the pious young folk pretended. She poised the brazen vessel on her head, telling herself passionately it was im- possible. Yet the sight of the wide courtyard, empty save for Baha-jee creeping about to feed the milch kine and do what he could of woman's work, revived that refrain 6f self-reproach, "There are too few of us." Shivo himself had said it — UMA HIMAVUTEE 219 for the first time it is true, but would it be the hast? Wherefore? since it was true. She set down the water-pot and began to rekindle the ashes on the hearth, thinking stupidly of that reflection of her own face. But water was like a man's heart; it could hold more faces than one. ''Ari, half sister," called Mai Radha, pausing at the open doorway to look in and see the house- mistress clapping unleavened bread between her palms with the hot haste of one hard pressed for time. '' Thou hast no rest ; but one woman is lost in these courts. I mind when thy mother- in-law lived and there were young things grow- ing up in each corner. That is as it should be." A slow flush darkened Uma's face. " Young things come quick enough when folks will," she retorted passionately. " Give me but a year's grace, gossip, and I, Uma-devi, will fill the yard too — if I wish it filled. Ay ! and without asking thy help either." It was intolerable that this woman with her yearly, endless babies should come and crow over the childless hearth. Yet she was right ; and again the old sickening sense of failure replaced the flash of indignant forgetfulness. " Heed not my food, daughter," came the cheer- ful contented old voice. " I can cook mine own 220 VMA. HIMAVUTEE and Shivo must need his after the day's toil. If thou take it to him at the threshing-floor 'twill save time; when hands are few the minutes are as jewels and it grows dark already. Thou wilt need a cresset for safety from the snakes." Once more the woman winced. That was true also ; yet had she been doing her duty and bringing sons to the hearth it would not have been so, for the glory of coming motherhood would have driven the serpents from her path.^ She paused at the doorstep to give a backward glance, to see the old man already at his woman's work, and her heart smote her again. Was it seemly work for the most learned man in the village who had taught his son to be so good, so kind? Yet Shivo of himself would never say the word, neither would the old man. That was the worst of it; for it would have been easier to have kicked against the pricks. She passed swiftly to the fields, the brass platter — glittering under the flicker of the cresset and piled with dough cakes and a green leaf of curds — poised gracefully on her right palm, the brass lotah of drinking water hanging from her left hand, the heavy folds of her gold and madder draperies swaying as she walked. It was not yet quite dark. A streak of red light lingered in the horizon, though 1 A common belief in India. UMA HIMAVUTEE 221 overhead the stars began to twinkle, matched in the dim stretch of shadowy pLain by the twin- kling lights showing one by one from the threshing- floors. But Shiv-deo's was still dark, because there had been no one to bring him a lamp. She gave an angry laugh, set her teeth and stepped quicker. If it came to that, she had better speak at once ; speak now — to-night — before Mai Radha or some one else had a chance — speak out in the open where there were no spies to see — to hear. It was a clear night, she thought, for sure ; and, despite the red warning, giving promise of a clear dawn. One of those dawns, maybe, when, like a pearl-edged cloud, the far distant Himalayas would hang on the northern horizon during the brief twi- light and vanish before the glare of day. Ai ! Mai Uma must be cold up there in the snows ! And Shivo must be hungry by this time ; watch- ing, perhaps, the twinkling light she carried come nearer and nearer. The thought pleased her, soothing her simple heart, and the placid routine of her life came to aid her as she set the platter before her husband rev- erently with the signs of worship she would have yielded a god. Were they not, she and Shivo, indissolubly joined together for this world and the next ? Was not a good woman redemption's source to her husband? Baha-jee had read that many 222 UMA HIMAVUTEE times from his old books. So she felt no degra- dation as she set the water silently by Shivo's right hand, scooped a hollow in the yellow wheat for the flickering cresset and then drew apart into the shadows leaving the man alone to perform the ritual in that little circle of light. He was her husband ; that was enough. With her chin upon both her hands she crouched on another pile of corn and watched him with sad eyes. Far and near all was soft, silent darkness save for those twinkling stars shining in heaven and matched on earth. Far and near familiar peace, familiar certainty. Even that pain at her heart ? Had not others felt it and set it aside ? The calm endurance of her world, its disregard of pain, seemed to change her own smart to a dull ache, as her eyes followed every movement of the man who loved her. " Thou art silent, wife," he said, kind wonder in his tone, when, the need for silence being over, she still sat without a word. That roused her. Silent! yea! silent for too long. She rose suddenly and stood before him, tall and straight in the circle of light. Then her voice came clear without a tremble. "There are too few of us in the house, husband. We must have more. We must have young hands when ours are old." UMA HIMAVUTEE 223 He stood up in his turn stretching his hands towards her. " Uma! say not so," he faltered, " I want no more." She shook her head. " The fields want them ; and even thou " Then her calm broke, dissolved, disappeared, like a child's sand barrier before the tide. She flung lier arms skyward and her voice came like a cry. "Ask her — ask thy sister — let her do all. I cannot. And she — she must come from afar, Shivo, from far ! Not from here — lest Mai Radha " She broke off, turned and flung herself face down in the corn silently, clutching at it with her hand. Shiv-deo stood looking out over the shadowy fields. '' They need them surely," he said softly after a time, " and my father has a right " He paused, stooped, and laid a timid touch on the woman's shoulder. " Yea I she shall come from far, wife, from far." Then there was silence ; far and near. II There was no lack of life now in the Avide court- yards, though the year claimed by Uma's pride had scarcely gone by. And there was more to come ere the sunset, if the gossips said sooth as they passed in and out, setting the iron knife (suspended 224 UMA HIMAYTJTEE on a string above the inner door) a-swinging as they elbowed it aside. From within came a babel of voices, striving to speak softly and so sinking into a sort of sibilant hiss, broken by one querulous cry of intermittent complaint. Without, in the bigger courtyard was a cackle and clamour, joyfully excited, round a platter of sugar-drops set for due refreshment of the neighbours. It would be a boy, for sure, they said, the omens being all propitious and Purm-eshwar^ well aware of the Avorthiness of the household. But, good lack ! what ways foreign women had ! There was tlie girl's mother, disre- garding this old custom, performing that new mum- mery as if there were no canon of right and wrong ; yet they were — those town women — of the race, doubtless of the same race ! It was passing strange ; nevertheless Uma herself did bravely, having always been of the wise sort. She had given the word back keenly but now to Mai Radlia who, as usual, had her pestle in the mortar, and must needs join in the strange woman's hints that the first wife was better away from the sufferer's sight. Pura- mesh I What an idea ! She had spoken sharp and fair, as was right, seeing that it Avas hard above the common on Uma — so young, so handsome, so Avell- beloved ! Many a pious one in her place, with no mother-in-law to deal Avith — only two soft-hearted, 1 The Universal God. UMA HIMAVUTEE 225 sof t -tongued men — would have closed the door on another wedding yet awhile, and bided on Provi- dence longer. Small blame either. It was not ten 3^ears since those two had come together ; while as for affection The rush of words slackened as the object of it set the swinging knife aside, and came forward to see that naught was lacking to the hospitality of the house. With those strange women within, lord- ing it over all hy virtue of their relationship to the expectant mother, it behoved her honour to see that there was no possible ground for complaint. It was a year since Uma had flung herself face down upon the wheat, and now the yellow corn once more la}^ in heaps upon the white tlireshing- floor. Another liarvest had been sown and watered and reaped; but Uma was waiting for hers. And her mind was in a tumult of jealous fear. Shivo Avith all his goodness, his kindness to her, could scarcely help loving the mother of his child better than the woman who had failed to bring him one. How could she take that other woman's son in her arms and hold it up for the father's first look ? Yet that would be her part. The strain of the thought showed in her face as she moved about seeing to this and that, speaking to those other women serenely, cheerfully. Her pride ensured so much, <^ 226 UMA HIMAVUTEE Within, the coming grandmother heaved a very purposeful sigh of relief at her absence. The pa- tient would be better now that those glowering eyes were away. Whereat Mai Radha, the time-server, nodded her head sagely ; but the girlish voice from the bed, set round with lamps and flowers, rose in fretful denial. "■ Hold thy peace, mother. Thou canst not un- derstand, being of the town. It is different here in the village." The mother giggled, nudging her neighbour. " Nine to credit, ten to debit ! That's true of a first wife, town and country. But think as thou wilt, honey ! Trust me to see she throws no evil eye on thee or the child. She shall not even see it till the fateful days be over." The village midwife, an old crone sitting smok- ing a pipe at the foot of the bed, laughed. " Thou art out there, mother ! "lis her part, her right, to show the babe to its father. That is old fashion and we hold to it." " Show it to its father ! Good lack ! Heard one ever the like I " shrilled the indignant grand- mother to be. ''Why, with us he must not see it for days. Is it not so, friends?" The town-bred contingent clamoured shocked as- sent ; the midwife and her cronies stood firm. Uma, appealed to by a deputation, met the quarrel coldly. UMA HIMAVUTEE 227 "I care not," she said; "settle it as you please. I am ready to hold the child or not." So a compromise was effected between the dis- putants within, before the beating of brass trays announced the happy birth of a son, and they came trooping into the outer court full of words and explanations. But Uma heard nothing and saw nothing except the crying, frog-like morsel of humanity they thrust into her unwilling arms. So that was Shivo's child ! How ugly, and what an ill-tempered little thing. Suddenly the gur- gling cry ceased, as instinctively she folded her veil about the struggling, naked limbs. " So ! So ! " cried the gossips, pushing and pull- ing joyfully, excitedly. " Yonder is the master ! All is ready." She set her teeth for the ordeal and let herself be thrust towards Shivo, who was seated by the door, his back towards her. She had not seen him since the advent of the gossips at dawn had driven the men-kind from the homestead. And now the sun was setting redly, as on that evening a year ago when she had told him they were too few for the house. Well, there were more now. And this was the worst. Now she was to see love grow to his face for the child which was not hers, knowing that love for its mother must grow also unseen in his heart. 228 UMA HIMAVUTEE " So ! So ! " cried the busy, unsympathetic voices intent on their own plans. " Hold the child so, sister, above his shoulders, and bid him take his first look at a son." The old dogged determination to leave nothing undone which should be done, strengthened her to raise the baby as she was bid, stoop with it over Shivo's shoulder and say, almost coldly : " I bring thee thy son, husband. Look on it and take its image to thine heart." Then she gave a quick, incredulous cry ; for, as she stooped, she saw her own face reflected in the brass-ringed mirror formed by the wide mouth of the brimming water-pot, which was set on the floor before Shiv-deo ! " Higher ! sister ! higher," cried the groups. " Let him see the babe in the water for luck's sake. So ! Ari! father, is not that a son indeed! Wah! the sweetest doll." Sweet enough, in truth, looked the reflection of that tiny face where her own had been. Slie let it stay there for a second or two; then a sudden curiosity came to her and she drew aside almost roughly, still keeping her eyes on the water- mirror. Ah! there was her husband's face now, with a look in it that she had never seen before — the look of fatherhood. Without a word she thrust her burden back UMA HIMAVUTEE 229 into other arms, asking impatiently if that were all, or if they needed more of her services. "More indeed," muttered the grandmother tartly as she disappeared again, intent on sugar and spices, behind the swinging knife. " Sure some folk had small labour or pains over this day's good work. Lucky for the master that there be other women in the world." Uma looked after her silently, beset by a great impatience of the noise and the congratulations. She wanted to get away from it all, from those Avhispers and giggles heard from within, and interrupted every now and then by that new gurgling cry. The excitement was over, the gossips were departing one by one, Shivo and his father were being dragged off to the village square for a pipe of peace and thanksgiving. No one wanted her now; her part in the house was done, and out yonder in the gathering twilight the lieaps of corn were alone ; as she was. She could at least see to their safety for a while and have time to remember those faces ; hers, and the child's, and Shivo's. Well ! it was all over now. No wonder they did not need her any more since she had done all — yea ! she had done her duty to the utter- most ! A sort of passionate resentment at her own 230 UMA HIMAVUTEE virtue filled her mind as, wearied out with the physical strain, she lay down to rest upon the yielding yellow wheat. How soft it was, how cool. She nestled into it, head, hands, feet, gain- ing a certain consolation from the mere comfort to her tired body. And as she looked out over her husband's fields, the very knowledge that the harvest had been reaped and gathered soothed her ; besides, in the years to come there would be other hands for other harvests. That was also as it should be. And yet? She turned her face down into the wheat. " Shivo ! Shivo ! " she sobbed into the fruits of the harvest which she had helped to sow and gather. " Shivo ! Shivo ! " But to her creed marriage had for its object the preservation of the hearth fire, not the fire of passion, and the jealousy which is a virtue to the civilised was a crime to this barbarian. So, as she lay half-hidden in the harvested corn, the thought of the baby's face, and hers, and Shivo's — all, all in the water-mirror, brought her in a confused half-comprehending way a certain comfort from their very companionship. So, by degrees, the strain passed from mind and body, leaving her asleep, with slackened curves, upon the heap of corn. Asleep peacefully until a hand touched her shoulder gently, and in the soft UMA HIMAVUTEE 231 grey dawn she saw her husband standmg beside her. She rose slowly, drawing her veil closer with a shiver, for the air was chill. "I have been seeking thee since nightfall, wife," he said in gentle reproach, with a ring of relief in his voice, "I feared — I know not what — that thou hadst thought me churlish, perhaps, because I did not thank thee for — for thy son." His hand sought hers and found it, as they stood side by side looking out over the fields with the eyes of those whose lives are spent in sowing and reaping, looking out over the wide sweep of bare earth and beyond it, on the northern horizon, the dim, dawn-lit peaks of the Himalayas. '' He favours her in the face, husband," she said quietly, ''but he hath thy form. That is as it should be, for thou art strong and she is fair." So, as they went homeward through the lighten- ing fields, — she a dutiful step behind the man, — the printing presses over at the other side of the world were busy, amid flaring gas-jets and the clamour of marvellous machinery, in discussing in a thousand ways the dreary old problems of whether marriage is a failure or not. It was not so to Uma-devi. YOUNG LOCHINVAR Young Lochinvar, in the original story, came out of the West. In this tale he came out of the East, and the most match-making mamma might be disposed to forgive him ; partly on account of his youth, partly because he really was not a free agent. They were cousins of course. In the finest race of the Panjab — possibly of the world — cousins have a right to cousins provided the relationship lie through the mother's brother, or the father's sister ; the converse, for some mysterious reason, being anathema maranatha. But Nanuk's mother, wife of big Suchet Singh, head man of Aluwallah village, was sister to Dhyan Singh, the armourer, who plied his trade in the little courtyard hidden right in the heart of the big city. A big man too, high-featured and hand- some ; high-tempered also as the steel which he inlaid so craftily with gold. For all that, round, podgy Mai Gunga, his wife, ruled him by virtue of a smartness unknown to his slower, gentler 232 YOUNG LOCHIXVAR 233 nature. Not so gentle, however, but that he mourned the degeneracy of these latter piping days of peace. They and the Arms Act had driven him from the manufacture of sword hilts and helmets, shields and corselets, to that of plaques and inkstands, candlesticks and ashtrays. From the means of resistance to the decoration of victorious drawing-rooms. Not that he nourished ill-feeling against those victors. They were a brave lot, and since then his people had helped them bravely to keep their winnings. Only it was dull work ; so every now and again Dhyan Singh re- venged himself by making a paper knife in the form of some bloodthirsty lethal weapon, and put his best work on it, just to keep his hand in. Little Pertabi, his daughter, used to sit and watch her father at the tiny forge set in the central sun- shine of the yard. It was funny to see the shaving of sheer steel curl up from the graver guided in its flowing curves by nothing but that skilled eye and hand ; funnier still to watch the gold wire nestle down so obediently into the groove ; funniest of all to blow the bellows when the time came to put that iridescent blue temper to the finished work. Then, naked to the waist, the soft brown hair on her forehead plaited in tiniest plaits into a looped fringe, a little gold filigree cup poised on the top 234 YOUNG LOCHINVAR of her head, a long betasselled pigtail hanging down behind, Pertabi would set her short red-trousered legs very far apart, and puff and blow, and laugh, and then blow again to her own and her father's intense delight ; for Dhyan having a couple of strapping sons to satisfy Mai Gunga's heart felt himself free to adore this child of his later years. But even when there was blowing to be done, Pertabi did not find life in the city half as amus- ing as life out in the village at her aunt's with cousin Nanuk as a playfellow. Nanuk to whom she was to be married by and by. That had been settled when she w^as a baby in arms, for in those, and for many years after, Suchet Singh's wife and Mai Gunga had been as friendly as sisters-in-law can well be. That is to say there were visits to the village for change of air, especially at sugar- baking time, while those who wished for shopping or society came as a matter of course to the ar- mourer's house. The world wags in the same fashion East and West ; especially among the women folk. " They will make a fine pair ! God keep them to the auspicious day," the deep-chested country- women would say piously ; then Mai Gunga would giggle a bit, and remark that if Nanuk grcAV so fast she would have to leave Pertabi at home next YOUNG LOCHINVAR 235 time. Whereupon the boy's mother woiihl flare up, and sniff, as country folk do, at town ideas. In her family such talk had never been necessary ; the lads and lasses grew up together, and mothers were in no hurry to bring age and thought upon them. Perhaps that was the reason why men and women alike were of goodly stature and strength ; for even Mai Gunga must admit that Dhyan was at least a fine figure of a man. So there would be words to while away the hours before the men re- turned from the fields. And outside, under the bushy mulberry trees, Pertabi and Naiiuk would be fighting and making it up again in the cosmopolitan fashion of healthy children. Of the two Pertabi, perhaps, hit the hardest ; she certainly howled the loudest, being a wilful young person. Nanuk used to implore her not to tease the sacred peacocks, when they came sedately by companies to drink at the village tank, as the sun set red over the limitless plane of young green corn, and she would squat down suddenly on her red-trousered heels with her hands tight clasped behind her back, and promise to be as still as a grey crane if she might only look. Then some vainglorious cock was sure to show off his tail ; every tail was to Pertabi's eager eyes the most beautiful one in the world, and she must needs have a feather — just one little feather — from it as a keepsake — just a little keep- 236 YOUNG LOCHINVAR sake. Now, what Pertabi desired she got, at any rate if Nanuk had aught to say towards the possi- bility. So the little tyrant would play with the feather for five minutes; then fling it away. But Nanuk, serious, conscientious Nanuk, would set aside half his supper of curds on the sly and sneak out with it after sundown as an oblation to the mys- terious village god, who lived in a red splashed stone under the peepul tree. Else the peacocks being angry might not cry for rain, and then what would become of the green corn? Nanuk was a born cultivator, true in most things, above all to Mother Earth. Despite the peacocks' feathers, how- ever, not without a will of his own ; for when, on one of his visits to the city, Pertabi insisted on handling the little squirrel he brought with him housed in his high turban, and it bit her, he laughed, saying he had told her so ; nay, more, when she chased the frightened little creature sav- agely, howling for vengeance, he fell upon her and boxed her ears soundly, much to Mai Gunga's displeasure. A rough village lout, and her dar- ling the daintiest little morsel of flesh ! " I don't care," sobbed Pertabi ; " I'll bite him hard next time — yes! I Avill, Nano ; you'll see if I don't." Mai Gunga, however, was right in one thing. Pertabi was an extremely pretty child. The gos- YOUNG LOCH INVAR 237 sips coming in of an afternoon to discuss births, marriages, and deaths took to shaking their heads and saying that she miglit have made a better match than Nanuk, who, every one thought, Avould limp for life in consequence of that fall from the topmost branch of the sMsliam tree where the squirrels built their nests. Not much of a limp, perhaps, but who did not know that under the bone-setter's care a broken leg often came out a bit shorter than the other, even if it was as strong as ever ? Mai Gunga's plump, pert face hardened, but she said nothing ; not even when a \\q\y ac- quaintance, the Avife of a rich contractor on the lookout for a bride of good family, openly be- wailed the prior claim on Pertabi. Nevertheless the next time that the sister-in-law 'came to town, and on leaving it laden with end- less bundles wrapped in Manchester handkerchiefs spoke confidently of the meeting at sugar-time, Mai Gunga threw difficulties in the way. She was too busy to come herself ; Nanuk, still a semi- invalid, must be quite sufficient charge for her sister-in-law. Besides seeing that Pertabi touched the eights, she thought it time for village customs to give way to greater decorum. Briefly, despite the peculiar virtue of some people's families, she did not choose that lier daughter should be out of her sight. The two women, as might be sup- 238 YOUNG LOCHINVAR posed, parted Avith ceremony and effusion ; but Suchet Singh's wife had barely arrived in the wide vilhige courtyards ere she burst forth : " Mark my words ! " she said, even as she dis- posed her bundles about her. "That town-bred woman means mischief. I was a fool to give in to you and Dhyan, instead of having the barber, as to a stranger. Not that I want the little hussy above other brides, but I would not have Nanuk slighted." Suchet Singh laughed. " Tv/enty mile of an eklca hath shook thy brains out, wife. What talk is this ? They are two halves of one pea. As friend Elahi Buksh saith, '•do dil razi to hia hare kazif (when two are heart to heart, where's the parson's part ?) " " Tra I That's neither in three nor thirteen,"' retorted his wife. " Give me the barber ^ for cer- tainty." ' Meanwhile Pertabi was howling in the little courtyard, much to big, soft-hearted Dhyan's dis- tress. ''Let her go, but this once," he pleaded aside; "truly thou art over anxious, and slie but seven for all her spirit." " Seventy or seven, God knows thee for a baby," snapped Mai Gunga. " Would I had never listened 1 The barber is always employed in regular betrothals. YOUNG LOCHINYAR 239 to thee and thy sister, though, for sure, the chil- dren were pretty as marionettes. It was a play to think of it. But a mother knows her daughter better than the father, though it seems thou wilt be ordering the wedding-garments next. So be it, but till then Pertab goes not to Nanuk; 'tis not seemly." "I — I don't want Nanuk," howled Pertabi. "I — I want the fresh molasses — I do — I do." Want, however, was her master, since her own obstinacy was but inherited from her mother. So she sat sulkily in the sunshine, refusing the ar- mourer's big caresses or the charms of bellows- blowing, while she pictured to herself, with all the vividness of rage, Nanuk going down — going down alone — to watch the great shallow pans of foamy, frothy, fragrant juice shrink and shrink in the dark, low hut where one could scarcely see save for the flame of the furnaces. What joy to feed those flames with the dry, crushed refuse of the cane and leaves I What bliss to thrust a tentative twig, on the sly, into the seething, darkening mo- lasses, and then escape deftly to that shadowy hiding-place by the well, and gravely consider the question as to whether it was nearly boiled enough. Toffee-making all over the world has a mysterious fascination for children, and this was toffee-making on a gigantic scale. The legitimate bairn's part of 240 YOUNG LOCHINVAR scraping from each brew never tasted half so sweet as those stolen morsels ; if only because, when you threw away the sucked twigs, the squirrels would come shyly from the peepul tree where the green pigeons cooed all day long, and fight for your leav- ings. Pertabi could see the whole scene when she closed her eyes. The level plain, the shadow of the trees blotting out the sunshine, the trickle of running Avater from the well, the creaking of the presses, the babel of busy voices, and over all, through all, that lovely, lovely smell of toffee! Yes I sugar-baking time in the village was heavenly, and Nanuk was greedy — greedy as a grey crow to keep it all to himself ! When Spring brought big Suchet to pay the village revenue into the office, he and tlie armourer met, as ever, on the best of terms; nevertheless their subsequent interviews with their woman-kind were less satisfactory. " Thou art worse than a peacock which cries even after rain has fallen," finished the big villager testily. ''What is it to me if women come or go? Dhyan is a man of mettle and word." Yet in his heart he knew well that the armourer had no more to say to such matters in the narrow city court, than he had in the wide village yard, where the kine stood in rows, and Nanuk's tumbler pigeons never lacked a grain of corn at which to peck. YOUNG LOCHINVAR 241 As for Mai Gunga, her wrath became finally voluble at the hint thrown out by big Dhyan, that if she went no more to the village, folk might talk of Pertab being slighted. Slighted, indeed, with half the eligible mothers agog with envy ! Slighted, when but for this cripple — yea ! Dhyan need not make four eyes at her — she said cripple, and meant it. He had a broken leg, and that to a man of sense was sufficient excuse for breach of betrothals. If, indeed, there ever had been such a thing as a betrothal ; which for her part she denied. Dhy^n Singh swore many big oaths, vowed many mighty vows that he would have naught to do with such woman's work. Not even if it became clear that, as his wife hinted, his little Pertab would not be welcome in his sister's house. Yet he scowled over the idea, twisted his beard tighter over his ears, as became a man, and looked very fierce. And when a month or two later Suchet Singh's wife met his halting apology for Mai Gunga's absence with a distinct sniff and a cool remark that she really did not care, — Nanuk could no doubt do better in brides, — he came home in a towering passion to his anvil and made a paper knife fit for a brigand. To have such a thing said to him, even in jest, when he, for his sister's sake, had been willing to waive the fact of Nanuk being a cripple I 242 YOUNG LOCHINYAR "Cripple indeed!" shrieked the boy's mother, when Suchet came back from the city one day with Dhyan's remark enlarged and illustrated by friendly gossip. " Lo, husband ! That is an end. Whose fault if he limps ? — only in running, mind, not in walking. Whose indeed ! Whose but that immodest, wicked, ill-brought-up hussy's ! Was it not to get her another squirrel, because she cried so for his, that he climbed ? Let her have her girl ; we will have damages." So when sugar-baking time came round again, Suchet and Dhyan, rather to their own surprise, found themselves claimant and defendant in a breach of betrothal case for the recovery of fifteen hundred rupees spent in preliminary expenses. Yet, despite their surprise, they were both beside them- selves Avith rage. Dhyan because of the unscrupu- lous claim when not one penny had been spent, Suchet because of the slur cast on his boy's straight limbs by the secondary plea in defence ; that even if there had been a betrothal and not a family understanding, the crippled condition of the bridegroom was sufficient excuse for the breach of contract. The actual point of the betrothal be- ing so effectually overlaid by these lies as to be obscured even from the litigant's own eyes. It was one gorgeous blue day in December that Suchet rode in to the city on his pink-nosed mare, YOUNG LOCHINVAR 243 with Naniik on the crupper to bear witness in Court to his own perfections. A handsome, soft- eyed Lad of ten, glad enough of the ride, sorry for the separation, even for one day, from the vil- lage toffee-making ; but Avith a great lump of raw sugar stowed away in his turban as partial conso- lation. For the rest, he had a childish and yet grave acquiescence. Pertabi apparently had been a naughty girl, and Mammi Gunga had never been nice. Yet the ''jej -sahib '' ^ might say they were married ; since, after all, he, Nanuk, could run as fast as ever. Tehu! he would like to show Per- tabi that it was so. The court-house compound was full of suitors and flies, the case of Suchet versus Dhyan Singh late in the list, so the former bade his son tie the mare in the furthest corner behind the wall, in the shade of a spreading tree, and keep Avatch, while he went about from group to group in order to discuss his wrongs with various old friends — that being half the joy of going to law ; grave groups of reverend bearded faces round a central pipe, grave, slow voices rising in wise saws from the close-set circles of huge turbans and massive blue and white draperies. Meanwhile Nanuk ate sugar till it began to taste sickly, and then he sat looking at the re- 1 Judge. 244 YOUNG LOCHINVAR maining lump and thinking, not without a certain malice, how Pert^bi would have enjoyed it. Then suddenly, from behind, a small brown hand reached out and snatched it. " One two, that's for you; two tliree^ tJiafs for me; three four, sugar galore; the Rajah begs, ivith a hrokeyi leg " The sing- ing voice paused, the little figure munching, as it sang, with vindictive eyes upon the boy, paused too in its tantalising dance. "Did it hurt much, Nano? I'm so sorry. And mother wouldn't let me keep the squirrel, Nano ; but I howled, I howled like — like a hhut (devil)." The abstract truth of the description seemed to bring back the past, and Nanuk's face relaxed. " Father's at Court, and mother's gone to see the woman who wants me to inarry her son," explained Pertabi between the munchings, "but I won't. I won't marry anybody but you, Nano. I like 3^ou, Nano." Nano's face relaxed still more. " You have got sugar-presses, Nano, and the other boy has none. He lives in the city, and I hate the city. Is there much sugar this year, Nano?" "More than last," replied the boy proudly. "We have the best fields in " " Then give me another bit," interrupted Pertabi. "That is all I brought." There was a trace of YOUNG LOCHINVAB 245 anxiety in Nanuk's voice, and he looked deprecat- ingly at the little figure now cuddled up beside him. " Oh, you silly ! but it doesn't matter. We can go and fetch some more. That's why I ran away. I knew uncle would bring you, so we can go to the village early. Come, Nano." " Go to the village, Pertab ! Oh, what a tale ! " It is easy to be virtuously indignant at the first proposition of evil, but what is to be done when you are at the mercy of a small person who hesi- tates at nothing ? Wheedlings, pinchings, hissings, tears, and promises were all one to Pertabi. At least a ride on the pink- nosed mare for the sake of old times ! They could slip away easily with- out being seen ; yonder lay the road villagewards — there would be plenty of time to go a mile, per- haps twain, and get back before CJiachcha-ji could possibly finish with his friends. She could get off at the corner, and then even if Chachcha-ji had dis- covered their absence Nano could say he had taken the mare for water, or that the flies were trouble- some. Excuses were so easy. Ten minutes after, his feet barely reaching the big shovel stirrups, young Lochinvar ambled out of the court-house compound with his bride behind him. " We must come back at the turn, Pertab," he said, to bolster up his own resolution. 246 YOUNG LOCHINVAR " Of course we must come back," replied Pertabi, digging her small heels into the old grey mare. " Can't you make the stupid go faster, Nano ? We may as well have all the fun we can." So the old mare went faster down the high- arched avenue of flickering light and shade, and Pertabi's little red legs flounced about in a way suggestive of falling off. But she shrieked with laughter and held tight to her cavalier. " Don't let us go back yet, Nano ! " she pleaded ; " the old thing is all out of breath, and Chachcha-ji will find out you've been galloping her, and beat you. I shouldn't like you to be beaten, Nano dear, and it is so lovely." It was lovely. They were in the open now among the level stretches of young green corn, and there were the fallen battalions of red and gold canes, and from that clump of trees came the familiar creak of the press. Nay, more ! wafted on the soft breeze the delicious, the irresistible smell of sugar- boiling. Other people's sugar-boiling. '^It's time we were going back," remarked Nanuk boldly. ''Tchuf' cried Pertabi from behind, ''we are not going back any more. See ! I've tied your shawl to my veil. When I do that to my dolls, then they are married ; so that settles it. Go on, Nano ! it's all right. Besides it is no use going YOUNG LOCHINVAR 247 back now, they would onl}^ beat us for getting married. Go on, Nano — or Til pinch." Perliaps it really was fear of the pinching, per- haps it was the conviction that they had gone too far to recede, which finally induced young Lochin- yar to give the old mare her head towards home. But even then he showed none of the alacrity dis- played beneath him and behind him by the female aiders and abettors. His face grew graver and graver, longer and longer. " We can't be married until we've taken the seven steps," he said at length. "Look! they have been burning weeds in the field. Let's get down and do it, or the gods will be angry." Pertabi clapped her hands. "It will be fun, any- how, so come along, Nano." They tied the old mare to a tree, while, hand tight clasped in hand, just as they had seen it done a hundred times, they circumambulated the sacred fire. "That's better," sighed Nano. "Now, I believe, we really are married." " Tchii ! " cried Pertabi in superior wisdom, " I can tell you heaps and heaps of things. Our dolls do them when we've time ; we are always marry- ing our dolls in the city. But we can ride a bit further first, and when we get tired of Pinky-nose we can just get down and be married another way. That'll rest us." 248 YOUNG LOCHINVAE So through the lengthening shadows, they rode on and got married, rode on, and got married, until Pertabi's braided head began to nod against Nanuk's back, and she said sleepily : " We'll keep the gur-ror (sugar-throwing) till to- morrow, Nano ; that'll be fun." But when, in the deep dusk, the pink-nosed mare drew up of her own accord at the gate of the wide village yard, and drowsy Nanuk just remembered enough of past events to lift his bride across the threshold, and murmur with an aw^ful qualm, "This is my wife," Pertabi woke up suddenly to plant her little red-trousered legs firmly on the ground, and say, with a nod : " Yes I and we've been married every Avay we could think of, haven't we, Nano ? except the sugar- throwing, because we hadn't any ; but — we'll — have — plenty — now ; won't we, Nano ? " The pauses being filled up by yawns. It was midnight before Suchet Singh and Dhyan, forgetful of their enmity in over-mastering anxiety, arrived on the scene. The culprits were then fast asleep, and the deep-chested country-woman, having recovered the shock, was beginning to find a difti- culty in telling the tale without smiles. A diffi- culty which, by degrees, extended itself to her hearers. " Ho ! ho ! ho ! " exploded Suchet suddenly ; YOUNG LOCHINVAR 249 "and so they didn't even forget the forehead mark. I'll be bound that was Nanuk — the rogue." "Ho ! ho ! ho ! " echoed the armourer ; "as like as not it was Pertab. The sharpest little marionette." " Well, 'tis done, anyhow," said the woman de- cisively. " We can't have it said in our family, ]3hyan, that the vermilion on a girl's head came save from her husband's fingers. He ! he ! he ! Couldst but have seen them. ' This is my wife,' quoth he. ' And we've been married every way we could think of,' pipes she. ' Haven't we, Nano?' The prettiest pair — Lord ! I shall laugh for ever." "And — and Gunga?" faltered the armourer. "Gunga's brain is not addled," retorted her sister- in-law sharply. " Who bruises a plum before taking it to market ? What's done is done. We must cook the wedding feast without delay, have in the barber, and keep a still tongue." So, ere many days were over, Pertabi and Nanuk, as bride and bridegroom, watched the fire-balloons go up into the cloudless depths of purple sky. The boy watching them shyly, yet with absorbing in- terest ; for did not their course denote the favour or disfavour of the gods ? "The omens are auspicious," he said contentedly; but Pertabi was in a hurry for the sugar-throwing, in which she aided her bridesmaids with such vigour that Nanuk had a black eye for several days. 250 YOUNG LOCHINVAII " If you were to ask me, and ask me, and ask me to lift you on old Pinky-nose again, I'd yiever do it — never ! ^^ \iQ declared vindictively. " Oil, yes ! you would, Nano," replied his wife with the utmost confidence, "you would if I asked you ; besides you really wanted to be married, you know you did. And then there Avas the fresh molasses." A BIT OF LAND He stood in the hot yellow sunshine, his air of modest importance forming a halo round his old rickety figure, as with one hand he clung to a plane-table, old and rickety as himself, and with the other to one of those large-eyed, keen-faced Indian boys who seem to have been sent into the world in order to take scholarships. The old man, on the contrary, was of the monkey type of his race, small, bandy-legged, and inconceivably wrinkled, with a three days' growth of grey beard frosting his brown cheeks ; only the wide-set brown eyes had a certain wristful beauty in them. In front of those appealing eyes sat a ruddy- faced Englishman backed by the white wings of an office tent and deep in the calf-bound books and red-taped files on the table before him. On either side, discreetly drawn apart so as to allow the central group its full picturesque value, were tall figures, massive in beards and wide turbans, in falling folds of dingy white and indigo blue; 251 252 A BIT OF LAND massive also in broad, capable features, made broader still by callable approving smiles over the old man, the boy, and the plane-table. So standing they Avere a typical group of J at peasantry appealing with confidence to English justice for the observ- ance of Indian custom. ''Then the head-men are satisfied with this ad- interim arrangement?" asked the palpably foreign voice. The semicircle of writers and subordinate officials on the striped carpet beyond the table moved their heads like clockwork figures to the circle of peasants, as if giving it permission to speak, and a chorus of guttural voices rose in assent ; then, after village fashion, one voice pro- longed itself in representative explanation. "It will be but for three years or so, and the Shelter- of-the-World is aware that the fields cannot run away. And old Tulsi knows how to make the Three-Legged-One Avork ; thus there is no fear." The speaker thrust a declamatory hand in the di- rection of the plane-table, and the chorus of assent rose once more. So the matter was settled; the matter being, briefly, the appointment of a new putwari, in other words the official who measures the fields, and pre- pares the yearly harvest-map, showing the area under cultivation on which the Land Revenue has to be paid ; in other words again, the man who A BIT OF LAND 253 stands between India and bankruptcy. In this particular case the recently defunct incumbent had left a son who was as yet over young for the hereditary office, and the head-men had pro- posed putting in the boy's maternal grandfather as a substitute, until the former could pass through the necessary modern training in the Accountants' College at head- quarters. The proposition was fair enough, seeing that Gurditta was sure to pass, as he was already head of the queer little village school which the elders viewed with in- credulous tolerance. And, to tell the truth, their doubts were not without some reason ; for on that very day when the Englishman was inspecting, the first class had bungled over a simple revenue sum, which any one could do in his head with the aid, of course, of the ten God-given fingers without which the usurer would indeed be king. The master had explained the mistake by saying that it was no fault of the rules, and only arose because the boys had forgotten which was the bigger of two numbers; but that in itself Avas something over which to chuckle under their breaths and nudge each other on the sly. Ari hail the lads would be forgetting next which end of the plough to hold, the share or the handle! But Puriimeshvar'^ be praised! only 1 The Universal God. 254 A BIT OF LAND upon their slates could they forget it ; since a true-born Jat's hand could never lose such know- ledge. So, underlying the manifest convenience of not allowing a stranger's finger in their pie, the elders of the village had a secondary consideration in plead- ing for old Tulsi Ram's appointment ; a desire, namely, to show the world at large and the Presence in particular that there had been putwaries before he came to cast his mantle of protection over the poor. Besides, old Tulsi, though he looked like a monkey, might be Sri Hunuman ^ liimself in the wisdom necessary for settling the thousand petty disputes, without wdiicli the village would be so dull. Then he was a real saint to boot, all the more saintly because he was willing to forego his preparation for another world in order to keep a place warm for his grandson in this. And after all it was only for three j^ears ! They, and Tulsi, and the Three-Legged-One could surely manage the maps for so long. If not, well, it was no great matter, since the fields could not possibly run away. So they went off contentedly in procession, Tulsi Ram clinging ostentatiously to the plane-table, which, by reason of its straighter, longer legs, looked for all the world as if it were taking charge of him, and not he of it. 1 The Monkey-god. A BIT OF LAND 255 It looked still more in possession as it stood decently draped beside the old man as he worked away at the long columns of figures ; for the map- ping season was over, and nothing remained but addition, subtraction, and division, at all of which old Tulsi was an adept. Had he not indeed dipped far into "Euclidus" in his salad-days when he was the favourite disciple of the re- nowned anchorite at Janakpur? Gurditta by this time was away at college, and Kishnu, his widowed mother, as she cooked the millet-cakes in the other corner of the courtyard, wept salt tears at the thought of the unknown dangers he was running. Deadly dangers they were, for had not his father been quite healthy until the Government had insisted on his using the Three-Legged-One? And then, had he not gone down and wrestled with it on the low, misty levels of newly reclaimed land by the river-side, and caught the chills of which he had eventually died? Thus when the rainy season came on, and the plane-table, still decently draped, was set aside for shelter in the darkest corner of the hovel, it looked to poor Kishnu like some malevolent demon ready to spring out upon the little household. And so, naturally enough, when Tulsi went to fetch it out for his first field-measurements, he found it garlanded with yellow marigolds, and set out with 256 A BIT OF LAND little platters of curds and butter. Kishnu had been propitiating it with offerings. The old man looked at her in mild, superior re- proof. " Thou art an ignorant woman, daughter," he said. " This is no devil, but a device of the learned, of much use to such as I who make maps. Thou shouldest have known that the true Gods are angered by false worship ; therefore I counsel thee to remember great Mahadeo this day, lest evil be- fall." So he passed out into the sunlight, bearing the plane-table in debonair fashion, leaving the abaslied Kishnu to gather up the marigolds. Baha-ji, she told herself, was brave, but he had not to l)ustle about the house all day with that shrouded tiling glowering from the corner. Hovv^ever, since for Gurdit's sake it was wise to propitiate everything, she took the platters of curds and butter over to Mahadeo's red stone under the big banyan tree. Nevertheless, she felt triumpliant tliat evening when old Tulsi came in from the fields dispirited and professing no appetite for his supper. He had in fact discovered that studying text-books and making practical field-measurements Avere very dif- ferent things, especially in a treeless, formless plain, where the only land-marks are the mud boundary- cones you are set to verify, and which therefore cannot, or ought not to be considered fixed points. A BIT OF LAND 257 However, he managed at last to draw two imagi- nary lines through the village, thanks to Puru- meshwar and the big green dome of Mahadeo's banyan tree swelling up into the blue horizon. Indeed he felt so grateful to the latter for show- ing clear, even over a plane-table, that he sneaked out when Kishnu's back was turned with a platter of curds of his ow^n for the great, many-armed trunk ; but this, of course, was very different from making oblation to a trivial plane-table. And that evening he spent all the lingering light in deco- rating the borders of the map (which was yet to come) with the finest flourishes, just, as he told Kishnu, to show the Protector-of-the-Poor that he had not committed the jt?i<^z^«rz-ship to unworthy hands. Yet two days afterwards he replied captiously to his daughter's anxious inquiries as to what was the matter. There was naught wrong ; only one of the three legs had no sense of duty, and he must get the carpenter to put a nail to it. Despite the nail, however, the anxiety grew on his face, and when nobody was looking he took to tramping over the ploughs surreptitiously dragging the primeval chain-measure after him ; in which occupation he looked like a monkey who had es- caped from its owner the plane-table, which, with the old man's mantle draped over it, and his pug- 258 A BIT OF LAND ree placed on the top, had a veiy dignified appear- ance in the corner of the fiehl ; for it was hot work dragging the heavy chain about, and okl Tulsi, who was too proud to ask for aid and so disclose the fact that he had had to fall back on ancient methods, discarded all the clothing he could. And after all he had to give in. '' Gurdit's father did it field by field," said the head-men carelessly when he sought their advice. " Fret not thyself, Baha-ji. 'Twill come right ; thou art a better scholar than ever he was." " Field by field ! " echoed Tulsi aghast. " But the book prohibits it, seeing that there is not veri- fication, since none can know if the boundaries be right." A broad chuckle ran round the circle of elders. " Is that all, Sri Tulsi ? " cried the head-man. '' That is soon settled. A Jat knows his own land, I warrant ; and each man of us will verify his fields, seeing that never before have we had sucli a settling-day as thine. Not an error, not an injus- tice ! Purumeshivar send Gurditta to be as good a putwari when he comes I " "Nay, 'tis Gurdit Avho is putwari already," re- plied Tulsi uneasily ; " and therefore must there be no mistake. So I will do field by field ; per- adventure when they are drawn on paper it may A BIT OF LAND 259 seem more like the book where things do not move. Then I can begin again by rule." There was quite a pleasurable excitement over the attested measurement of the fields, and old Munnia, the parcher of corn, said it was almost as good as a fair to her trade. Each man clanked the chain round his own boundary, while his neigh- bours stood in the now sprouting wheat to see fair play and talk over the past history of the claim ; Tulsi Ram meanwhile squatting on the ground and drawing away as for dear life. Even the children went forth to see the show, munching popped corn and sidling gingerly past the Three-Legged-One which, to say sooth, looked gigantic with half the spare clothes of the community piled on to it ; in- deed the village women, peeping from afar, de- clared Kishnu to have been quite right, and urged a further secret oblation as prudent, if not abso- lutely necessary. So she took to hanging the marigolds again, taking care to remove them ere the old man rose in the morning. And the result was eminently sat- isfactory, for as he put one field-plan after another away in the portfolio Tulsi Ram's face cleared. They were so beautifully green, far greener than those in the book ; so surely there could be no mistake. But alas I when he came to try and fit them together as they should be on the map, they 260 A BIT OF LAND resolutely refused to do anything of the kind. It was a judgment, he felt, for having disobeyed the text-book ; and so the next morning he rose at the peep of day determined to have it out legiti- mately with the Three-Legged -One. And lo ! it was garlanded with marigolds and set out once more with platters of curds and butter. " Thou hast undone me, ignorant woman I " he said with a mixture of anger and relief. "• Now is it clear ! Tlie true Gods in despite of thy false worship have sent a devil into this thing to de- stroy me." So despite Kishnu's terror and tears he threw the offerings into the fire, and dragged the plane-table out into the fields with ignominy. But even this protestation failed, and poor old Tulsi, one vast wrinkle of perplexity, was obliged once more to refer to the circle of head-men. '' Gurdit's father managed, and thou hast twice his mettle," they replied, vaguely interested. "Sure the devil must indeed be in it, seeing that tlie land cannot run away of itself." " It hath not run away," said Tulsi dejectedly. "There is not too little, but too much of it." Too much land I The idea was at first bewil- dering to these Jat peasants, and then sent them into open laughter. Here was a mistake indeed ! and yet the lust of land, so typical of their race, showed in their eyes as they crowded round the A BIT OF LAND 261 map which Tulsi Kam spread on the ground. It was a model of neatness : the fields were greener than the greenest wheat ; but right in the middle of them was a white patch of no-man's-land. " Trra ! " rolled the broadest of the party after an instant's stupefaction. " That settles it. 'Tis a mistake, for look you, 'tis next my fields, and if 'twere there my plough would have been in it long ago." A sigh of conviction and relief passed through the circle, for the mere suggestion had been disturbing. Nevertheless, since Gurdit's father's map had never indulged in white spots, Tulsi's must be purged from them also. "Look you," said one of the youngest ; " 'tis as when the children make a puzzle of torn leaves. He has fitted them askew, so let each cut his own field out of the paper and set it aright." Then ensued an hour of sheer puzzledom, since if the white spot were driven from one place it re-appeared differently shaped in another. The devil was in it, they said at last, somewhat alarmed; since he who brought land might be reasonably suspected of the power of taking it away. They would offer a scapegoat ; and meanwhile old Tulsi need not talk of calling in the aid of the new putwari in the next village, for he was one of the new-fangled sort, an empty drum making a big noise, and, as likely as not, would make them pay 262 A BIT OF LAND double, if there really was extra land, because it had not come into the schedule before. No ! they would ask the schoolmaster first, since he had ex- perience in finding excuse for mistakes. Nor Avas their trust unfounded, for the master not only had an excuse in something he called "a reasonable margin of error," but also a remedy which, he declared, the late putwari had always adopted ; briefly a snip here, a bulge there, and a general fudging with the old settlement-maps. The elders clapped old Tulsi on the back with fresh laughter bidding him not try to be cleverer than others, and so sent him back to his drawing- board. But long after the dusk had fallen that evening, the old man sat staring stupidly at the great sheet of blank paper on which he had not drawn a line. It was no business of his what Gurdit's father had done, seeing that he too was of the old school inwardly, if not outwardly ; but Gurdit himself, when he returned, would allow of no such dishonesties, and he, Tulsi, was in the boy's place. There Avas time yet, a month at least before inspection, in which to have it out Avith the plane-table. So when the wild geese from the mud- banks came witli the first streak of dawn to feed on the wheat, they found old Tulsi and his attend- ant demon there already, at work on the dewy fields ; and Avhen sunset Avarned the grey crane A BIT OF LA^^D 263 that it was time to wing their flight riverwards, they left Tulsi and the Three-Legged-One still struggling with the margin of error. Then he would sit up of nights plotting and planning till a dim, dazed look came into his bright old eyes, and he had to borrow a pair of horn spec- tacles from the widow of a dead friend. He was getting old, he told Kishnu (who was in despair), as men must get old, no matter how many mari- golds ignorant women wasted on false gods ; for she had taken boldly, and unchecked, to the obla- tions again. But in the end inspection -day found that white bit of land white as ever, nay, whiter against the dark finger which pointed at it accusingly ; since, as ill-luck would have it, what only the natives themselves may call a Black Judge was the in- specting officer. A most admirable young Bachelor of Arts from the Calcutta University, full to the brim of solid virtue, and utterly devoid of any sneaking sentimental sympathy with the quips and cranks of poor humanity; those lichens of life which make its rough rocks and Avater-worn boulders so beautiful to the seeing eye. " This must not occur," he said, speaking, after the manner of the alien, in English to his clerk in order to enhance his dignity. " It is gross negligence of common orders. Write as warning that if better map be not forthcoming, 264 A BIT OF LAND locum tenens loses appointment with adverse influ- ence on hereditary claims." Adverse influence on hereditary claims ! The words, translated brutally, as only clerks can trans- late, sent poor old Tulsi into an agony of remorse and resolve. A month afterwards Kishnu spoke to the head- men. " The Three-Legged-One hath driven the putwari crazy," she said. " Remove it from him or he will die. Justice I Justice!" So it was removed and hidden away with obloquy in an outhouse ; whereupon he sat and cried that he had ruined Gurdit — Gurdit the light of his eyes! "Heed not the Bengali," they said at last in sheer despair. '' He is a fool. Thou shalt come with us to the big Sahib. He will understand, seeing that he is more our race than the other." That is how it came to pass that Tulsi Ram sat on the stucco steps of an Englishman's house, point- ing with a trembling but truthful finger at a white spot among the green, while a circle of bearded Jats informed the Presence that Sri Hunuman him- self was not wiser nor better than their jmtwari. " And how do i/oii account for it ? I mean what do you think it is ? " asked the foreign voice curi- ously. The wrinkles on Tulsi's forehead grew deeper, A BIT OF LAND 265 his bright yet dim eyes looked wistfully at the master of his fate. " 'Tis an over-large margin of error, Huzoo7\ owing to lack of control over the plane-table. That is what the book says : that is what Gurdit will say." " But what do you say ? How do you think that bit of land came into your village ? " Tulsi hesitated, gained confidence somehow from the blue eyes : " Unless Purumeshuar sent a bit of another world ? " he suggested meekly. The Englishman stood for a moment looking down on the wizened monkey-like face, the truth- ful finger, the accusing white spot. '' I think he has," he said at last. " Go home, Tulsi, and colour it blue. I'll pass it as a bit of Paradise." So that year there was a blue patch, like a tank where no tank should be, upon the village map, and the old putivai^i's conscience found peace in the correct total of the columns of figures which he added together; while the Three-Legged-One, released from durance vile at his special request, stood in the corner garlanded with the marigolds of thanksgiving. Perhaps that was the reason why, next mapping season, the patch of Paradise had shrunk to half its original size ; or perhaps it was that he really had more control over the plane- table. At any rate he treated it more as a friend by spreading its legs very wide apart, covering it 266 A BIT OF LAND with his white cotton shawl, and so using it as a tent, when the sun was over hot. And yet when, on Gurdit's return from college with a first-class surveyor's certificate. Paradise became absorbed in a legitimate margin of error, there was a certain Avistful regret in old Tulsi's pride, and he said that, being an ignorant old man, it was time he returned to find Paradise in another way. "But thou shalt not leave us for the wilderness as before," swore the Jats in council. " Lo ! Gurdit is young and hasty, and thou wilt be needed to settle the disputes ; so we will give thee a saintly sitting of thy very own in our village." But Tulsi objected. The fields were the fields, he said, and the houses were the houses ; it only led to difficulties to put odd bits of land into a map, and he would be quite satisfied to sit any- where. In the end, however, he had t*o give in, for when he died, after many years spent in settling disputes, some one suggested that he really had been Sri Hunuman himself ; at any rate, he was a saint. So the white spot marking a shrine re- appeared in the map, to show whence the old man had passed to the Better Land. THE SORROWFUL HOUR It was one of those blue days which come to the plains of Upper India when the rains of early September have ceased, leaving the heat-weary, dust-soiled world regenerate by baptism. A light breeze sent westering ripples along the pools of water filling each shallow depression, and stirred the fine fretwork of an acacia set thick with little odorous puffs, sweet as a violet. Despite the ruddy glow of the sinking sun, the shadows, far and near, still kept their marvellous blue — a clear porcelain blue, showing the purity of the rain- washed air. A painter need have used but three colours in reproducing the scene — red and blue and yellow in the sky ; russet and blue and gold in the tall battalions of maize and millet half- conquered by the sickle, which stood in shadowed squares or lay in sunlit reaches, right away to the level horizon. Russet and blue and gold, also, in the dress of a woman who was crouching against the palisade of plaited tiger-grass, which formed two sides of 267 268 THE SORROWFUL HOUR the well-homestead. Seen upon this dull gold diaj^er, her madder-red veil and blue petticoat, with their corn-coloured embroideries, seemed to blend and be lost in the harvest scene beyond, even the pools of water finding counterpart in the bits of looking-glass gleaming here and there among her ample drapery. She was a woman who in other countries would have been accounted in the prime of life ; in India, past it. Yet, as she crouched — her whole body tense in the effort of listening — every line of her strong face and form showed that she was not past the prime of passion. '' Ari ! Heart's delight ! See, O father ! Yon is his fifth step, and still he totters not. What ! wouldst crawl again? Oh ! fie upon such laziness." The high, girlish voice from Avithin the palisade paused in a gurgle of girlish laughter. " Say, O father ! looks he not, thus poised hands and feet, for all the world like the monkey people in Gopal's shop when they would be at the sweets ? Ai ! my brother! what hast found in the dust? Cry not, heart's life. Mother will give it back to Chujju again. So, that is good ! Holy Ganeshji ! Naught but a grain of corn ! Art so hungry as all that, my little pecking pigeon, my little bird from heaven?" "Little glutton, thou meanest," chuckled a base voice. "Still, of a truth, O Maya, the boy grows." THE SORROWFUL HOUR 269 "Grows? I tell thee he hath grown. See you not this two-year-old hath turned farmer already ? He comes to bargain with thee, having his corn in his hand. Give him a good price, to handsel his luck, O Gurditta Lnmberdar." ^ " I will pay thee for him, O wife ! Sure, hast thou not given me the boy, and shall I not pay my debt? Nay, I am not foolish, as thou sayest. What ! Wouldst have me kiss thee also, little rogue? So! Yet do I love mother best — best of all." The woman behind the palisade stood up sud- denly. Tall as she was, the feathery tops of the tiofer-ofrass rose taller ; so she could stand, even as she had crouched, unseen. Unseeing also. Other women might have lent eyes to aid their ears, but Saraswati was no spy — no eavesdropper by intent, either. The lacquered spinning-wheel, the wheat- straw basket piled with downy cotton cards which lay on the ground beside her, testified to what her occupation had been, till something — Heaven knows what, for she heard such light-hearted babble every day — in tliose careless voices roused her pent-up jealousy beyond the dead level of patience. She was not jealous of the child. Ah, no ! not of the child. Was it not for the sake of such a one that three years before she had given Maya, his mother, 1 Head-man of village. 270 THE SOKKOWFUL HOUR a dignified welcome to the childless home? But Mil}' a? Ah I well was she called Maya — the wximan prolific of deceit and illusion, of whom the pundits spoke ; Avoman, not content with being the child- bringer, but seeking Saraswati's large, capa- ble hands closed in upon themselves tightly. She did not need to peer through the plaited chinks to know the scene within. She saw it burnt in upon her slow, constant brain. The tall bearded man of her own age — her own type — her kins- man — the patient, kindly husband of her youth ; the child — his naked brown limbs dimpled still more by silver circlets on wrists and ankles ; those curving, dimpling limbs, which, somehow, made her heart glad ; and between them, degrading them both, Maya, Avith her petty, pretty face, her petty, pretty ways. Suddenly, as it had come, the passion passed — passed into that curious resignation, that impassive acquiescence, which does more to separate East from West than all the seas which lie between England and India. " Old Dhunnu said sooth," she muttered, stooping to gather up her wheel and bobbins methodically. " 'Tis the child which makes him love her, and I have been a fool to doubt it. I \vill delay no longer." Behind the low mud houses, angled so as to form THE SORROWFUL HOUR 271 two sides of the sqviare, four or five jujube trees clustered thickly, and beneath them the dark green whips of the jasmine bushes curved to the ground like a fountain set with blossoms. Hence, and from the straggling rose hard by, the women in the early dawn gathered flowers for the chaplets used in the worship of the gods. There were so many occasions requiring such offerings ; sorrowful hours and joyful hours, whether they were of birth, or marriage, or death. Who could say, till the end came, whether they were one or the other ? Only this was certain, flowers were needed for them all. Towards this thicket Saraswati, still with the same impassive face, made her way, pausing an in- stant before the long, low, mud manger where her favourite milch cow stood tethered, to stroke its soft muzzle and give it a few tall stalks of millet from a sheaf resting against the well-wheel. And once more the scene was red and blue and gold, as the broad yellow leaves and blood-streaked stems blent with her dress. There was not a change in her face, as, parting the branches, she disappeared into the thicket, scattering the loose blossoms as she went ; not a change, Avhen after a minute or two, she reappeared, carrying a little basket with a domed cover, securely fastened by many strands of raw cotton thread, such as she had been spin- ning — a basket of wheaten straw festooned with 272 THE SORROWFUL HOUR cowries, and tufted with parti-coloured tassels, such as the Jatni women make for the safe keeping of feminine trifles — an innocent-looking basket, sug- gestive of beads and trinkets. She paused a mo- ment, holding it to her ear, and then for the first time a faint smile flickered about her mouth as she caught a curious rasping noise, half-purr, half- rustle. " Death hath a long life," she murmured, as she hid the basket in the voluminous folds of her veil and walked over to the homestead. As she entered by a wide gap in the plaited palisade, the scene within was even as slie had imagined it ; but the barb had struck home before, and the actual sight did not enhance her resentment. " It grows late, O Maya," she said coldly. " Leave playing with the child and see to the fire for the cooking of our lord's food. Thou hast scarce left an ember aglow beneath the lentils while I Avas yonder spinning." The reproof was no more than what might come with dignity from an elder wife ; but Gurditta, lounging his long length in well-earned rest on a string bed, rose, murmuring something of seeing to the plough oxen ere supper time. The big man was dimly dissatisfied with affairs ; he felt a vague desire to behave better towards the Avoman who had been his faithful companion for so many years. THE SOKROWFUL HOUR 273 But for her, he knew well, things would go but ill in the little homestead by the well. Yet Maya was so pretty. What man, still undulled by age, would not do as he did ? For all that, the little capricious thing might be more friendly with Sara- swati ; there was no need for her to snatch Chujju in her arms whenever the latter looked at the child. But then women — and Maya was a thorough woman — were always so fearful of the evil eye. Fancy her calling that straight-limbed, utterly desirable son, Chujju,! as if any one would cast such a gift away in the sweeper's pan ! As if the gods them- selves, far off as they were, could be deceived by such a palpable fraud, or even by that ridiculous smudge of charcoal on the boy's face which only enhanced instead of detracting from its beauty ! Gurditta laughed a deep, broad laugh as he strewed the long manger with corn cobs and green stuff cut from the fodder field by the well. Meanwhile, within the house yard, Maya was sullenly blowing away at the embers held in the semicircular mud fireplaces ranged along one of the Avails. A grass thatch, supported by two forked sticks, protected this, the kitchen of the house, from possible rain and certain sun ; while on the other wall a similar screen did like duty to a triple 1 From chujj, a sweeper's basket. One of the many opprobrious names given to avert tlie envious, and tlierefore evil, eye. 274 THE SORROAYFUL HOUR row of niches or pigeon-holes, wherein the house- hold stores in immediate use were kept out of harm's way. For the rest, was a clean-swept ex- panse of beaten earth set round, after the fashion in a farmer's house, with implements and hive-like stores of grain. Between the one thatch and the other Saraswati moved restlessly, bringing pickles and spices as they were wanted. And still the basket lay tucked away in the folds of her veil. " The raw sugar is nigh done," she said, stooping with her back towards Maya to reach the lowest row of niches. " We must use the candy to-night, till I can open the big store. Luckily I bought some when we took the Diwali ^ sweets from Gopal." Then, ere she replaced the cloth in which the sweetmeats were tied, she held out a sugar horse to the child, who was playing by his mother. " Here, Chujju, wilt have one ? " Maya was on her feet at once, indignant, vehe- ment. " Thou shouldst not offer him such things. He shall not take tliem from thee. I will not have it. Nay, nay, my bird — my heart's delight ! Mother will give thee sweets enough. Kick not so, life of my life ! Ganesh ! how he cries. He will burst : and 'tis thy fault. Hush, hush ! See, here is 1 For the most part, sugar animals, such as are sold at English fairs. THE SORROWFUL HOUR 275 mother's milk. Ai ! wicked one ! would bite ? Ye gods, but 'tis a veritable Toorh for temper." Hushing the child in her arms, she walked up and down, followed by Saraswati's calm, big black eyes. " Thou art a fool, Maya," she said slowly, putting down the sugar horse. " Gopal's sweets would not have hurt the child so much as thy spitefulness." Then she turned to her work ag-ain amone the niches. When she rose the basket was in her hand, the threads were broken, and the cover tilted as if something slender and supple had been allowed to slip out. Perhaps it had, for behind the sugar horse, standing in the lowermost niche, two specks of fire gleamed from the shadow. It was growing dark now, but the harvest moon riding high in the heavens and the now flaming fire aided the dying daylight, and a curious radiance, backed by velvety shadows, lay on everything. " I must sweep out the niches thoroughly to- morrow," she said indifferently. " Methought just now I heard the rustle as of a jelaU> They love to hide in such places, and therefore I bid thee but yesterday see to their cleansing. But, sure, what work is done in this house mine must be the hand 1 EcMs carinata, the Indian viper. It lies coiled in a true-lover's knot, rustling its scales one against the other. It is the most vicious and irritable of all Indian snakes. 276 THE SORROWFUL HOUR to do it. See to your lentils, sister ; methinks they burn at the bottom." Maya, with a petulant shrug of her shoulders, set doAvn the child. ''Such work spoils my hands, and — and — folk like them pretty." Even she, town born and town bred, did not dare before this grave-eyed peasant Avoman to name her husband's name in such a connection,^ but Saraswati understood the allusion, and the simple, straightforward naturalism drawn from ages of rural life which was her heritage, rose up in arms against such depravity. But even as she lashed herself to revenge by the thought, ever} thing that was stable seemed to shift, all that moved to stand still. Her heart ceased beating, the walls span round, the moon quivered, the flames grew rigid. Ah, no ! one thing that moved would not pause. Chujju had caught sight of the sugar horse, and was creeping towards it, now on his little fat hands, now tottering on his little fat feet, his glistening eyes fixed on the niche which held those gleaming specks of fire. ^ No ! nothing was too bad for Maya ; and Dhunnu, the wise woman, had been right when she said that the charm lay in the child. It must be so — 1 A husbaini's name should never be mentioned by a wife, especially in matters referring to herself. THE SORROWFUL HOUR 277 and death was naught. There ! he was close now, one little hand stretched out, the dimples showing _the Ah! A cry, fierce, almost imperative, and Saraswati had him in her arms, while something slim and grey fell from the niche in its spring, and wriggled behind a pile of brushwood. *' I saw its eyes," she gasped, still straining the child to her ample bosom, when Gurditta, brought thither by Maya's screams of " Snake ! snake ! " stood beside her, his breath coming fast, his man- liness stirred to its depths. Maya saw the danger swiftly. " Give liim to me," she clamoured. '' O husband, make her give him to me. She would kill him if she could. She put it there — I saw her put it there — I swear it." Saraswati turned on her in calm contempt. " Thou liest, O Maya ; since Time began, spirit of deceit and mother of illusion. Thou didst not see me put it there." Then, Avith the same dignity, she turned to the man. "Master! Take the child. He is safe. This much is true, I saved him." That night, when the moon still shone in the cloudless sky, Saraswati, her veil wrapped closely 278 THE SORROWFUL HOUR round her, stole softly from the homestead. Past the resting oxen, out among the serried battalions of maize and millet, where the tall sheaves, lying prone on the ground, looked like the bodies of those who had fallen in the day's fight; down on the sun-cracked borders of the tank, whence the water was sinking swiftly, now the rain had ceased ; by the ghostly peepul trees, shorn of their branches which the camels love, and looking weird and human with great arms stretched skywards ; so on to the burning ghat beyond, with its little cones of mud marking the spot of each funeral pyre, and the twinkling lights set here and there by pious survivors. Saraswati drew her veil tighter and sped faster as she passed through the more recent ashes, as yet uncovered, but swept into little heaps ; and there — horrible sight ! — still scattered, with the uncalcined bones gleaming in the moon- light, and a faint line of smoke still circling up- wards, lay the most recent of all. That must be old Anant Ram, the klmttri (merchant) who had died that morning : an evil man, come to his end. She was trembling ere she reached the hut where Dhun Devi, the wise woman, kept watch and ward over the ashes. It was a miserable shanty, where she found the old woman asleep before a large iron pot, supported on a trivet. Beneath it some cowdung cakes smouldered slowly, yet not THE SOKKOWFUL HOUR 279 SO slowly but that every now and again a blood- ied bubble showed on the contents of the pot. A flarmg oil-lamp, iilched, doubtless, from those outside, stood in a smoke-blackened niche, and by its light you could see festoons of dank, blood-red drapery clinging to a rope, while, with a drip, drip, drip, something fell upon the floor — something which ran in rills right out to the moonlight, and, sinking into the sand, stained it blood-red; a ghastly setting to the wise woman's crouching figure, even though SarasAvati knew that Mai Dhunnu was engaged in no more nefarious occu- pation than dyeing the webs of her ignorant neio'hbours with madder. The old crone stood up hastily, then sank to her low stool again when she had peered into her visitor's face. "Thou wilt not tell," she whis- pered in a hoarse croak, which, coming in realit}^ from a throat affection, vastly enhanced her claims to wisdom in the eyes of the villagers. "Thou art of the old style ; not like these apes of to-day, with their dog-eared books and their dyes which fade before a January sun." The chuckle she gave suited her surroundings well ; so did the claw-like hand she laid suddenly on Saraswati's firm arm. " Well, daughter ! Hast plucked up courage ? Hast learnt to trust the wisdom of old Dhun Devi?" 280 THE SORROWFUL HOUR Saraswati shook her head. '' Thou must find other wisdom for me, mother," she said briefly. "Such is not for me." " Obstinate ! I tell thee 'tis the glamour of the child." "'Tis not the child, though the gods know the poison hath bit deeper somehow since he came. Lo ! I have tried it, and 'tis not my way. Nor would I kill her. That were too trivial, seeing she is not worth life. I want but my share. It is empty here, emptier than ever, somehow, since the boy was born." She clasped her strong hands above her heart. The glow of the fire, spreading as the old woman fanned it with the tremulous breath of age, lit up the big black brows knit above the puzzled black eyes. Dhun Devi straightened her bent back, and looked at her companion critically. " Life is more than the shadow of a passing bird to such as thou, O Saraswati ! 'Tis not wise. For death is naught, and life is naught. The soul of man circles ever, like the potter's wheel, upon its pivot. Have I not seen it ? Have I not known it ? Did I not go through the night of a thousand dangers myself, and bring five stalwart sons into the day ? Wliere are they ? Have they not passed into the dark again? Have not my hands piloted THE SORROWFUL HOUR 281 many through the Sorrowful Hour and sent many from it ? Lo I the snake woukl not have harmed the child." '' I care not if thou speakest truth or not, O mother, though thou art learned above women in such thoughts, I know," muttered Saraswati sul- lenly, with drooping head. " Only this I know, that w^ay is not mine. There must be others. See I I have brought thee my golden armlet. Dliun^ w^as ever as a sign-post to Dhun Devi. Is 't not so ? " The old dame's fingers closed greedily on the bribe, careless of the open sneer which accompanied it. " Ways ? " she echoed. " Of a surety there are ways, but none so simple as death." '' Ay," said Saraswati quietly, " I have thought of that. The well is deep, and the little feathery ferns in the crannies look kind. But they would say Saraswati, the Jatni, had been ousted from her own well-land by a stranger, and that is not so. I heed not the girl ; deceit is her portion. 'Tis something here." Again she laid her hand on her heart with a puzzled look. " Nor do I want him only. Couldst thou not turn the child's mind to me, so that, seeing his love, Gurditta would hold me dearer also?" Dhun Devi shook her head, but her keen, bright old eyes were on the other's face. 1 Worldly- wealth. 282 THE SORROWFUL HOUR " There is a way," she whispered, after a pause, "but death lurks in it often with such as thou." "Whose death?" "Thine own. Do not all women know how the Sorrowful Hour " Saraswati caught the withered wrist in a fierce clasp. " Mai! " she panted ; " Mai Dhunnu ! Dost speak of the Sorrowful Hour to me — to me — after all these years! Is there hope — hope even yet?" "If thou art not afraid " "Afraid!" ****** It was sunrise in the homestead, and a new harvest was waiting in battalions for the sickle. The jasmine fountain showered its green stems to the ground, but it was bare of blossoms. They hung in chaplets from the thatch screen beneath' which, on that stifling August night, a woman had been passing through her Sorrowful Hour. In the dim dawn the little oil-lamps set about the bed flickered uncertainly in the breeze Avhich heralds the day, and glinted now and again on the lucky knife suspended by the twist of lucky threads above the pillow. In a brazier hard by some pungent spices scattered upon charcoal sent up a clear blue line, like the last faint smoke from a funeral pyre. All that wisdom could do THE SORROWFUL HOUR 283 Dliun Devi hud done, but a dead girl-baby lay be- tween Saraswati and the harvest visible through the gap in the plaited palisade. The midwife shook her head as she peered into the unconscious face on the pillow. "Only a girl, after all the fuss," came Maya's high, clear voice, as she sat cuddling Chujju in her soft round arms— Chujju, whom the gods had spared. "To die for a girl — for a dead girl, too — what foolishness I But 'twas her own fault. 'Tis bad enough for us young ones, and dear payment, after all, for the fun; and she had escaped all these years " Dhun Devi's claw-like fingers stopped the liquid flow of words. " Go, infamous ! " she Avhispered fiercely. " Such as thou are not mothers. Thou art Maya, the desire of the flesh. Go, lest I curse the child for thy sake." With a little shriek of dismay, half-real, half- pretended, the girl gathered the sleeping child in her arms and disappeared into the huts. "The wheel slackens on its pivot," muttered the old woman, stooping again over the still form on the bed. "I must get her to Mother Earth, as a seed to the soil, ere it stops." She stood at the gap and called. The fine fret- work of the acacia branches showed against the 284 THE SORROWFUL HOUR growing blue of the sky. The little golden puffs sent their violet perfume into the air. A bird sat among them, chirruping to its mate. " Come," she said, and the tall bearded man followed her meekly. Together — he at the head, she at the feet — they laid Saraswati on the ground with the dead child, half-hidden in her veil, still between her and the great stretch of harvest beyond. Suddenly, roused by the movement, she stirred slightly, and the big black eyes opened. Dhun Devi gripped the man's hand as if to detain him. " The child — is it well with the child ? " came in a faint voice. Dhun Devi's clasp gripped firmer ; a look recall- ing long past years came to her face. " Yea^ mother^ it is well; thy son sleeps in thine arms.'" Then, craning up from her crooked old age to reach his ear, she whispered swiftly : " Say 'tis so if thou art a man, and bid her God-speed on her journey." So, with her husband's hand in hers, a child in her arms, and a smile on her face, came the end of Saraswati's Sorrowful Hour. A DANGER SIGNAL They were an odd couple. The very trains as they sped past level crossing Number 57 gave a low whistle as if the oddities struck them afresh each time, and Craddock always went to the side of the cab, whence he could see those two motion- less figures on either side of the regulation barrier which stood so causelessly in the middle of the sandy waste. There must have been a road somewhere, of course, else there would have been no level cross- ing, but it was not visible to the passing e3^e. Per- haps the drifting sand had covered it up ; perhaps no traffic ever did come that way, and there really was no need for old Dhunnu and his granddaughter to stand like ill-matched heraldic supporters display- ing a safety signal. But they did. They had done so ever since Dhunni — for the name had descended to her in the feminine gender — Avas steady enough on her feet to stand alone, and before that, even, she had given "line clear" from her grandfather's arms. For it was always 285 286 A DANGER SIGNAL "line clear." No train ever stopped at level cross- ing Number 57 of the desert section. Why should they? There was nothing to be seen far or near save sand, and the little square concrete-roofed, red-hot furnace of a place, suggestive of a crema- torium, which happened on that particular railway to be the approved pattern for a gatekeeper's shelter. It was very hot in summer, very cold in winter, and that was perhaps the reason why old Dhunnu suffered so much from malarial fever in the au- tumn months ; those months which might other- wise have been so pleasant in the returning cool of their nights, and their promise of another har- vest. The old man used to resent this fever in a dull sort of way, because it was so unnecessary in that rainless tract. To quiver and shake in a quartian ague when the battalions of maize are pluming themselves on their own growth, and the millet-seeds, tired of cuddling close to each other, are beginning to start on lengthening stemlets to see the world, was legitimate ; but it was quite another thing to find a difficulty in keeping a sig- nal steady when there was not a drop of moisture for miles and miles, save in the little round well which had been dug for the gatekeeper's use. Dhunnu, however, had served the Sirkar for long years in the malarial tracts under the hills A DANGER SIGNAL 287 before he came as a pensioner to level crossing 57, and when once the marsh-monarch lays firm hold of a man he claims him as a subject for all time. It was this difficulty, no doubt, in keeping a sig- nal steady Avhich, joined to the intense pleasure it gave to the child, had first led to little Dhunni holding the green flag, while Dhunnu on the other side of the gate kept the furled red one in his shaking hand ready for emergencies. Then the train would sweep past like a great caterpillar with red and green eyes, and red and green lights in its tail, and Craddock would look out of the cab, and say to himself that time must be passing, since the child was shooting up into a girl. And still it was always the green flag ; always " line clear." It became monotonous even to Dhunni who had been brought up to it, and while her chubby hand clutched the baton firmly she would look resent- fully across at the furled red flag in her grand- father's shaking hand. '' Lo I ndnna'' she said spitefully, " some day it will shake so that the cloth will shake itself out, and then " He interrupted her with dignity, but in the tone in which a tit-mouse might reproach a tiger-cat ; for Dhunni, as he knew to his cost, had a temper. ''By God's blessing, oh Dhun devi, that will 288 A DANGER SIGNAL never be, since east and west is there no cause sufficient to check progress ; and as that is by order the green flag, so the green flag it will be." Dhunni made no reply in words. She simply flung the safety signal in the dust and danced on it with a certain pompous vigour which made the whity-brown rag of a petticoat she wore as sole garment, cease even its pretensions to be called a covering. For they were very poor, these two ; that was evident from the lack of colour in their clothing, which made them mere dusty brown shadows on the background of brownish dust. ''It shall be the red one some day, ndnna ! Yea ! some day it shall be the red flag, and then the train will stop, and then — and then," she gave one vindictive stamp to clinch the matter and walked off with her head in the air. The old man watched her retreating flgure with shocked admiration, then picked up the dishonoured flag, dusted it, and rolled it up laboriously. " Lo ! " he muttered as a half-gratified smile claimed his haggard face, " she is of the very worst sort of woman that the Lord makes. A virtuous man need be prepared for such as she, so 'tis well she is betrothed to a decent house. Meanwdiile in the wilderness she can come to no liarm." So far as the displaying of danger signals went. A DANGER SIGNAL 289 Dluinni herself was forced to admit the truth of this proposition, for even when the old man lay quivering and quaking, he kept the key of the box in which the red flag was locked, safely stowed away in his waistcloth. Once she tried to steal it, and when discovered in the act, took advantage of his prostration to argue the matter out at length, — her position being that the train itself must be as tired of going on, as she was of watching it. Whereupon he explained to her with feverish viv- idness the terrible consequences which followed on the unrighteous stopping of trains, to all of which she acquiesced with the greatest zest, even sug- gesting additional horrors, until it became a sort of game of brag between them as whose imagina- tion would go the furthest. Finally, as she brought him a cup of water from the well, she consoled both herself and him with the reflection tliat some day he must die of the fever, and then of course it would not matter to him if the train stopped or not, while she could satisfy herself as to whether those funny white people who looked out of the windows were real, or only stuffed dolls. ''Ari hudzart!'' he whimpered as he lay pros- trate and perspiring. "Have I not told thee dozens of times they are saliih logues? have I not seen them ? have I ■ " 290 A DANGER SIGNAL " Trra,"" replied Dliunni derisively, " that may be. I have not, but I mean to some day." Then the old man, adding tears of weakness to the general dissolution, begged her, if a train must be stopped, to stop a "goods," or even a "mixed." She argued this point also at length, till the fever fiend leaving him, Dhunnu resumed his authority and threatened to whack her, where- upon she ran away, like a wild thing, into the desert. It was a certain method of escape from the slow retribution of the old man, but as often as not she would return ere his anger had evaporated sooner than miss any one of the four caterpillars with the red and green eyes and the green and red lights in their tails. The}^ had a fascination for her which she could not resist, so she would take her whacking and then stand, bruised and sore, but brimful of curiosity, to give " line clear," as it were, to a Avhole world of Avhich she knew nothing. Even that was better t]ian having noth- ing to do with it at all. And then, as her grandfather grew older and feebler, and required a longer time to fetch the week's supply from the distant hamlet far over the edge of the sandy horizon, there came at last a day when she stood all alone in the very centre of the closed gate liolding out tlic green flag and A DANGER SIGNAL 291 salaaming obsequiously, for that was what grand- father had done on one or two occasions when, owing to niconceivable wickedness, she had been made to watch the passing of civilisation while tied to a distant bed leg. Craddock from his cab noticed the grave mim- icry and smiled, whereupon Dhunni smiled back brilliantly. And then something happened which curiously enough changed her whole estimate of civilisation, and left her with such an expression on her face that when her grandfather returned half an hour afterwards, his first thouglit was for the red flag. The key was safe in his waistcloth, yet still he began hurriedly; "Thou didst not " "Nay," she burst out in fury, "I did naught. But theyl—7idn7ia, I hate them! I hate them!" Then it turned out that the white dolls had flung a stone at her — a hard stone — yes, the pink and white child-dolls had flung a stone at her just because she had smiled. So with hands trembling with rage she produced in evidence a large chunk of chocolate. Dhunnu looked at it in superior wisdom, for there had been white children sometimes in that surveying camp below the hills. " 'Tis no stone," he said ; " 'tis a foreign sweet- meat. They meant well, being ignorant that we 292 A DANGER SIGNAL eat not such things. When they first come across the black water they will even fling bread." As he spoke he threw the offending morsel into the desert and spat piously. Dhunni looked after it with doubt and regret in her eyes. " I deemed it a stone," she said at last. " Think you it would have been sweet, like our sweet- meats ? " '' AH hudzart ! " cried the old man again. " Lak- shmi be praised thou didst take bread for a stone, else wouldst thou have eaten it and have been a lost soul." '' I Avould have tried if I liked it, anyhow," said Dhunni shamelessly. And that night, while her grandfather slept in the red-hot furnace to avoid the chillness of dawn, the moon found something else on the wide waste of sand, beside the crema- torium and the regulation barrier, to yield her the tribute of a shadow. It was Dhunni on all fours seeking high and low for the chunk of chocolate, and when she found it she sat up with it in her little brown paws and nibbled away at it for all the world like a squirrel. The result of which experiment being that she smiled brilliantly at every train from that time forth, perhaps in hopes of more chocolate, perhaps from gratitude for past chocolate, perhaps because she really was beginning to be more sensible, A DANGER SIGNAL 293 " It is being born to her in lavish manner," said old Dhunnu boastfully to an emissary of the future mother-in-law, who came as far as the village to inquire of the future bride's growth and health. " Go, tell them she gives ' line clear ' as Avell as I do, but that she is not yet of an age for the mar- ried state." In his heart of hearts, however, he knew very well that the time could not be far distant when he could no longer delay parting with the girl, who was fast shooting up into a tall slip of a thing. And then what should he do, for the fever fiend had a fast grip on him now — a firmer hold than he had upon life. Sometimes for days and days he could scarcely creep to the gate when the mail train passed, while, as for the " goods " and "mixed," these low-caste trains he left entirely to Dhunni's mercy; and safely, since the desire for the danger signal seemed to have passed with the possession of responsibility — and chocolate I Thus Dhunni, far from the eyes of the world, which would have sent her remorselessly into ths slavery of mother-in-law, grew tall and slender, and even in her old dust-coloured skirt and bodice caused Craddock the engine-driver, as he sped by, an occasional pang of regret as he remembered another tall girl with velvety eyes. So time passed until, as luck would have it, a 294 A DANGER SIGNAL wedding-party from the village where the future mother-in-law resided chose to try a short cut over the desert, and actually crossed the line at level crossing Number 57. The result being that Dhun- ni's readiness for the married state became known, and a fortnight or so afterwards she sat looking at the new suit of clothes and some jewels which had been sent to her, with an intimation that the bridal procession would come for her in a week's time. The presents were poor enough in themselves, but then Dhunni had never seen anything so bright before ; except, of course, the red flag. And though the little round mirror set in the bridal thumb-ring does not allow of much being seen at a time, Dhunni saw enough to make her eyes still more velvety, her smile still more bewitching. " Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain," grum- bled her grandfather in equivalent Hindu, but it had no effect on the girl. All that day she went about with an odd half-dazed look on her face, and when the women who had brought the presents left in the afternoon, she went and sat down by the gate, feeling vaguely that it was some one else and not the old Dhunnu who was sitting there. The mail train had passed an hour before, and the "goods" was not due till mid- night, so there was no chance of anything to A DANGER SIGNAL 295 interrupt the level monotony she knew so well, and yet, as she sat leaning against the gate-post with the green flag beside her, she was waiting for something ; for what she did not know. But the certainty that life held something new was thrilling to her very finger tips. It was a yellow sunset, full of light and peace. Then out of it came suddenly a faint roll, as of distant thunder. She was on her feet in an instant, listening, waiting. Ah! this was new, certainly. This slie had never seen before. An engine with a single carriage coming full speed out of the golden west. Was she to give "line clear" to this? or The sound of a girl's laugh rang out into the light, and a scarlet veil, deftly twisted round a baton, hung clear into the line. "What in the world's the matter?" asked an English boy, as Craddock and the Westinghouse brake combined brought the final quiver to the great shining fly-wheel. He was a tall boy, fair- haired, blue-eyed, imperious. The girl had given a little gasp at the look on his face as he had leapt from the still moving train to come towards her, though she now stood looking at him boldly, the improvised signal still in her hand. "What is it, Craddock? Ask her. You under- stand their lingo, I don't." 296 A DANGER SIGNAL Cracldock, leaning over the side of the cab, sur- veyed the picture with a magisterial air. " Sorry I brought 'er up, sir, tho' seein' a red rag it's kind o' second natur' when your 'and's within reach o' a brake, sir. And then she never done it before — not all these years." " But what is it ? I don't understand " " Saving your presence, sir," replied Craddock cheerfully, "there ain't no reason you shouldn't, for it don't take any knowledge o' the lingo, sir ; no more o' any kind o' knowledge but what you're up to, sir, being, as the sayin' is, born o' Adam — o' Adam an' Eve. It's mischief, sir, that's what it is — mischief, and there ain't much difference in the colour o' that, so far as I see, sir." The boy's face showed nothing but angry, almost incredulous, surprise for an instant, then something else crept into it, softening it. '' By George ! Crad- dock," he said argumentatively, " I'd no notion they could look — er — like that. She is really quite a pretty girl." He could not help a smile somehow; whereat, to his sur^Drise, she smiled back at him, the deliberately bewitching smile born of that chunk of chocolate. It recalled him to a sense of injured importance. "This is most annoying, and when so much de- pends on my catching up the mail," he continued. " She will be stopping the next train too, I suppose ; A DANGER SIGNAL 297 but it can't be allowed, and she ought to be pun- ished. I'll take her along and leave her at the first station for inquiry, they can easily send another signaller by the down train. Tell her, Craddock." " Better pukro 'er 'ath,'^ sir," remarked the latter sagely as he prepared to descend, ''else she might 'oof it into the wilderness like one of them ravine deer. Just you pukro 'er 'ath^ sir, while I samjhaS ^ her." Dhunni, however, did not attempt to run, she only shrank a little when the boy's white hand closed on hers. After that she stood listening to Craddock's violent recriminations quite calmly. In truth she expected them, for in those old games of brag with ndrma they had gone further than words, up to hanging in fact. Yet still not so far as this queer tremor of half -fearful, half -joyful expectation. That was new, but pleasant, and filled her eyes with such light that Craddock stroked his corn-coloured beard and shook his head mournfully. " She's a deal 'arder than I took 'er for, seein' her always as it were, sir, from a different sp'eer. A deal worse. If I'd a pair o' bracelets ready they might give 'er a turn, but I've told 'er she'll 1 Take her hand. 2 Explain. 298 A DANGER SIGNAL go to 'ell in every lingo I know, for fear she mightn't understand, and I'm blest if she care a hang." The boy gave a resentful laugh. " I'll make her care before I've done with her. There ! you there ! — what's your name ? — stick her with you into the cook room. No ; shove her into my carriage and I'll do chowkidar'^ till I can hand her over. Now, Craddock, on with the steam or I shall miss my connection. Confound the girl ! " It was easy to confound her in the abstract ; easy also to glower at the offender crouched in the off corner before you threw yourself into the arm-chair in the other and began to read the last number of a magazine by the waning light. But what was to be done when it was gradually being borne in on you that a pair of velvety eyes, wild as a young deer's, were Avatching you fearlessly. She was a good plucked one, at any rate. Crad- dock had said she was as hard as nails and a bad lot. Well, he ought to know ; but she did not look bad, not at all. The eyes were good eyes, full of straightforward curiosity, nothing more. There she was bending down to try the texture of the carpet with her finger, as if nothing had occurred — the little monkey — and what white 1 Watchman. A DANGER SIGNAL 299 teeth she had when she met his involuntary smile with another. After that, under cover of his book, he watched her furtively. It was what is called an inspection carriage, a regular room on wheels, and the boy, new to the honour and glory of such a thing, liad hung pictures on its walls, curtains to its windows. There was even a vase of flowers be- side the newly lit lamp on tlie centre table. The lamp had a pink shade too, which threw" a rosy light on everything, above all on tliat slender figure crouching in the far corner. And outside the golden sunset was fast fading into cold greys. '' You want to know^ what that is," he said sud- denly, in English, laying down his book and pointing in the direction where her eyes had been fixed. An expectant look came to them, and he stood for a moment irresolute. Then he rose with an impatient shrug of his shoulders, crossed to the small harmonium which lay open, set his foot to the pedal and struck a single note. She drew back from the sound just, he thought, as she had drawn back from his hand, and then looked at him as she had looked at him then. By Jove I she had eyes I Still looking at her lie sat down to the instru- ment and played a chord or two out of sheer curi- osity. Her finger went up to her lip, she leaned 300 A BANGER SIGNAL forward, a picture of glad surprise. And then a sudden fancy seized him. He had a tenor voice, and there was a song upon the desk. Singing in a train, ev^en in a single carriage on a smooth line, was a poor performance, but it would be fun to try. " The Devout Lover," of all songs in the world ! The humour, the bitter irony of it struck him keenly and decided him. And as he sang he felt with a certain anger that he had never sung it better — might never sing it so well again. When he turned to her again it struck him that she recognised this also, for she was leaning for- ward half on her knees, her hands stretched out over the seat. No one could have listened more eagerly. In sudden petulance he rose and went to the window. There was only a bar of gold now on the horizon, and, thank Heaven ! they had come faster than he thought — or he wasted more time in tomfoolery — for they were already entering the broken ground. That must be the first ravine, dark as a ditch ; so ere long he Avould be able to get rid of those curious eyes. Powers above I Was fate against him ? Was he never to arrive at his destination ? And what did Craddock mean by putting the brake hard on again when they were miles away even from a level crossing? He was A DANGER SIGNAL 301 out on tlie footboard as tliey slackened, shouting angry inquiries long before Craddock's voice could possibly come back to him through the lessening rattle. "Danger signal comin' down the line. On a trolly, I think, sir. Somethin's wrong." Apparently there was, and yet the English voice which sang out of the darkness had a joyful ring of triumph in it, and tlie friendly hand which fol- lowed the voice, after a minute or two, sliook the boy's hand amid warm congratulations on the narrowest escape ; for no one had thought it could possibly be done, or that warning could possibly be given in time. It was the veriest piece of luck ! Briefly, just after the mail had passed, a big cul- vert had given not two miles further down the line. They had telegraphed the information both ways of course, though, as no train was due for hours, there was plenty of time for repairs. Then had come the return wire, telling of the boy's start to overtake the mail on urgent business. Every one had said it was too late ; and, after all, it had been a matter of five minutes or less. The veriest luck indeed ! If they had been five minutes earlier . . . The boy looked solemnly at Craddock, and the light of the red lamp, dim as it was, showed a cer- tain emotion in both faces. 302 A DANGER SIGNAL " That's about it, sir," said Craddock, a trifle huskily. " Au' I tellin' her she'd go to *ell ! Lordy ! ain't it like a woman to have the last word?" He said no more then, but when it had been decided to return the way they had come, and take a branch line farther down, and when the trolly with its red signal had slipped back silently into the night, he came and stood at the carriage door for a moment. And as he looked at the figure crouching contentedly in the corner, lie stroked his beard thoughtfully again, and went on as if no interval had come between his last words and his present ones. "But she saved our lives, sir, by stoppin' us, that's what she done, sure as my name's Nathaniel James, and when a girl done that, a man's got nothin' left but, as the sayin' is, to act fair an' square by her — fair an' square." " Just so, Craddock," replied the boy, with a queer stiffness in his voice. ••' We'll drop her at the gate again, and — and it shall be just — just as if it — as if it hadn't happened." Then he added in a lower voice, " Spin along as fast as you can, man, and let's have done with it." "I won't leave her a /iounce for a whistle, sir," said Craddock laconically. So the carriage with the rosy light streaming through the windows shot forth into the darkness A DANGER SIGNAL 303 in front, and the sparks from the engine drifted into the darkness behind, and the roar and the rush drowned all other sonnds. Perhaps Craddock whistled in the cab to make up for not being able to whistle on his engine. Perhaps the boy sang songs again in the carriage because he could not speak to the girl. Anyhow, they were both silent when the fly-wheel quivered into rest once more beside level crossing Number 57. ''Stop a bit," said a rather unsteady voice as a girl's figure paused against the rosy light of the open door. "It's too long a step. I'll lift you down." Craddock, looking over the side, turned away and gave a sympathising little cough as if to cover some slighter sound. Perhaps he knew what Avould have happened if he had been in the boy's place. The next instant, some one sprang into the cab and turned the steam hard on, some one with a half-pained, half -glad look on his face. " Now then, Craddock, right we are ! " And Craddock, as he bent to look at the indi- cator, answered, " Right it is, sir ; fair and square. Full pressure and no mischief come of it." "I hope not," said the boy softly; "but it is a bit hard to know — to know what is fair and square — with — with some people." 304 A DANGER SIGNAL Perhaps he was right ; for Dhunni stood gazing after the red and green lights Avith a dazed look on her face. The danger signal had come into her life — the train had stopped, and then — and ? AMOR YINCIT OMNIA This story began and ended in a public library. An odd, forlorn little offshoot of progress, dibbled out beyond the Avails of a far-away Indian city, which drowsed through the sunny to-day as it had drowsed through many a century of sunny yester- days. True it is that in a certain mimetic and superficial manner Pooranabad had changed with the changing years. It had evolved a municipal committee, and this in its turn had given birth to various simulacra of civilisation ; but in effect the former was but the old council of elders in modern guise, and the latter but Jonah's gourd, springing up in a day or a night at the bidding of some minor prophet from over the seas. They came and went, these minor prophets, each with his theory, his hobby ; and even when Pooranabad knew them no more, it could remember its rulers by the libraries and band-stands, the public gardens, the schools, and the museums they had left behind them. The library itself stood in the midst of a newly X 305 306 AMOR YINCIT OMNIA laid-out public garden, which but two summers before had been a most evil-smelling tank — at least, for nine months of the year ; the remaining three found it a shining lake flushed with fresh rain and carpeted with pink lotus blossom. But culture of all sorts had stepped in with drain- pipes, bricks, mortar, flowers, and books, and the result was a maze of winding Avalks, stubbly grass, and stunted bushes gathered round a square stuc- coed building of one room encircled b}^ an arched verandah. To east and south the deceptive walls and flat mud roofs of the native city looked like towers against the sky. To west and north stood avenues of shishuin trees, with here and there a peep of the white bungalows wherein the minor prophets dwelt and grew gourds. Within, under the one roof hung with tw^o punkahs, stood two tables, the one littered with English magazines and illustrated papers, the other bare, save for a few leaflets of the native press, with high-sounding names and full of still more lofty sentiments. The two bookcases, one at each end of the room, showed the same well-intentioned, but unsuccessful, impartiality; for the eastern one was nearly empty, while the western overflowed, chiefly with novels ; a dozen shelves of them to one of miscellaneous literature, made up for the most part of works on the Central Asian question AMOR VINCIT OMNIA 307 and missionary reports. The novels, however, had a solid appearance, since most of them had been re-bound by the district-office bookbinder in the legal calf and boards which he used also for the circulars and acts by which India is governed. Before this bookcase stood the only occupant of the room, a tall w^eedy boy of about fifteen. A boy with remarkably thin legs, somewhat of a stoop in his narrow shoulders, and a supple brown finger travelling slowly along the ill-spelt titles of the book ; ill spelt, because the Government bookbinder could hardly be expected to grapple successfull}^ with the title of a modern novel. The hesitations of this brown finger might have served as an index to the owner's taste, and showed a distinct leaning towards sentiment. It lingered over several suggestive titles, until it finally set- tled on something writ large in three volumes. After which the boy, crossing to a double desk midway between the tables, wrote in the English register in a fine bold hand any clerk might have envied : Amor Vincit Omnia. Govind Sahai, Kyasth. So, with tAvo volumes under his arm, and one held close to his soft, short-sighted black eyes, Govind Sahai, of the tribe of Kyasths, or scribes, made his way citywards down one of the winding 308 AMOR VINCIT OMNIA paths. Thus strolling along he was typical of the great multitude of Indian boys of his age. Boys who read — great heavens ! what do they not read, with their pale intelligent faces close to the let- tering ? And their thoughts ? — that is a mystery. Govind Sahai's face was no exception to the rule ; it was young, yet old ; high-featured, yet gentle ; the ascetic hollows in the temples belied by the long sweeping curves in the mouth, and both these features neutralised by the feminine oval of the cheek. He was the only son of a widow, who, thanks to his existence, led a busy and contented life in her father-in-law's otherwise childless house ; for the honours of motherhood in India are great. Yet she was poor beyond belief to Western ears. Across the black water, in a Christian country, such poverty would have meant misery, but in the old simplicity of Pooranabad the little household managed to be happy ; above all, in its hopes for the future, when Govind's edu- cation should be over, and he be free to follow his hereditary trade as a writer. His father had found his ancestral level, oddly enough, in com- piling sanitary statistics in an English office, until the cholera added one to the mortality returns by carrying him off as a victim; after which all the interest of life to the inhabitants of the little courtyard and slip of roof which Govind called AMOR VINCIT OMNIA 309 home centred in the clever boy, who could only follow his father's trade if he succeeded in gaining the necessary pass ; for education has undermined heredity. So Govind worked hard for the scholar- ship which would enable him to go to college. Day after day he absorbed an amount of informa- tion which was perfectly prodigious. INIonth after month found him further and further adrift on the sea of knoAvledge. Even in play-time he gorged himself on new ideas, as might be seen by the library register. It was not only Amo?' Vincit Omnia which showed on its pages, but many another similar work : Lost for Love, Govind Sahai, Kyasth. Love the Master, " " My Sweetheart, " " One Life, One Love, " " And so on down one column and up another, for the boy read fast. On this particular hot, dusty May morning he became so interested in his last book that he sat down on the parapet of the city's central sewer, and twining one thin leg round the other plunged headlong into a sentimental scene between two lovers, heedless of his unsavoury environments. The interweaving of intellectual emotion and ma- terial sensation pictured on the page seemed to 810 AMOR VINCIT OMNIA this boy, just verging upon manhood, to be an inspiration, lifting the whole subject into a new world of pure passion. It appealed, as a matter of fact, though he knew it not, both to his in- herited instincts and his acquired ideas, thus sat- isfying both. " My darling^^'' said Victor^ raising her stveet face to his, and pressing a kiss on those pure, pale lips, " love such as ours is eternal. Earth has no power " — et cpetera, et ceetera, et cietera. The tears posi- tively came into his eyes; he seemed to feel the touch of those lips on his, making him shiver. The little soft tendrils of her hair stirred ivith his breath as Una, shrinking to his side, ivhispered, *' I am not afraid when I am ivith you, my king. I feel so strong! so strong to maintain the Bight .^ Strong to maintain our Love before all the ivorld ! For Love is of Heaven, is it not, dear heart? " " Our Love is,'' murmured Victor, once more raising her pure, pale Et csetera, et csetera, et cietera. Yes, it was very beautiful, very exalting; also very disturbing to this inheritor of a nature built on simpler, more direct lines. That ancestral past of his seemed brutally bald beside this highly deco- rated castle of chivalry. '' Aha ! Good evening, pupil Govind," broke in AMOR VINCIT OMNIA 311 the accurate voice of Narayan Chanel, head master of the district school. "You have, I am ghad to see, availed j^ourself of advantages of public library. With what mental pabulum have you provided your- self this summer's eve ? " As he spoke, he seated himself likewise on the parapet of the sewer, and read over the boy's shoulder, Aynor Vincit Omnia. Then his spec- tacled glance travelled down the page, returning for comfort to the title ; that, at least, smacked of learning. " Ah, aha I I see. Light literature. Good for colloquial, and of paramount use in vivas. So far, well. For superiority of diction, neverthe- less, and valuability to grammar studies, give me Tatler^ Spectator, and such classics." Govind closed his book in most unusual irrita- tion. " Even in English literature, master-y^, new things may be better than old." " Of that there is no possible doubt," quoted mas- tei-ji, with cheerful gravity. He was a most dili- gent reader of the English papers, and used to sit at the library table for hours of an evening de- vouring the critiques on Gilbert's or Tennyson's last with undiscriminating absorption in the forma- tion and style of the sentence. His quotations were in consequence more various than select. " Of that there can be no possible probable manner of doubt, as a modern poet puts it tersely," he re- 312 AMOR VINCIT OMNIA peated, tilting his embroidered smoking-cap farther from his forehead and drawing the black alpaca tails of his coat round his legs ; '' yet still, for all that, it is held, that — to speak colloquially — for taking the cake of scholarship the classics " Govind Sahai put his feet to the ground and the first volume under his arm. " Master-y^, when one labours long days at cube roots, then classics in the evening become excessive. Life is not all learning; life is love also." He was quoting from the book he had been reading. " Sits the wind in that quarter," began Narayan sagely ; then he looked at the boy reflectively and changed manner and language. " That brings to memory, my son," he said in Hindustani. '^ When comes thy wedding procession ? I must speak to the virtuous widow that it come in vacation time, so as not to interfere Avith study." A sullen indifference was on Govind's face. " You need not fear, master-yi ; I mean to have the scholarship. The wedding will make no dif- ference." Narayan Chand smiled a superior smile. "Nay, my son ; it must — it should — for a time. So is the vacation convenient. Thou canst return to school when the festal season is over. Come, I will speak to thy relations even now." AMOR VINCIT OMNIA 813 The widow was sifting wheat. A pleasant-faced little dump of a woman, with dimples on her bare brown arms. " Mother," said Govind calmly, " is grandfather in? The iimster-ji hath come about my wedding." " What have men to say to such things ? " she answered, with a shrill laugh ; " go tell mastev-ji, heart of mine eyes, that it is settled for the first week of vacation. Her people were here but now. Hurri hai I but I shall laugh and cry to see thee ! There shall be nothing wanting at all I Flowers and sweets and merriment. Thy granny and I have toiled and spun for it. And the bride sweeter than honey. Fie ! Govind, be not shy with thy mother ! Think of the bride she gives thee, and tell her thou art happy." She flung her arms round her tall son, kissing him and plying him with questions till he smirked sillily. " Happy enough, mother, " he admitted, then felt Amor Vincit Omnia under his arm,, and sighed. '' I would much rather not be married ; at least, I think not. Oh, mother, I would she had fair hair and blue eyes ! " " Lakshmi ! hear him ! Wouldst marry a fright, Govind ? Wait the auspicious moment ; wait till I lift the veil. Oh, the beauty ! fresh from the court of Indra, wheat-coloured and languishing with jewels and love." 314 AMOR vmciT OMNIA Govind shook his head. "Profane not the great name of Love." He quoted to himself, being forced to this secrecy by the fact that the only language his mother under- stood has no word for love — as he meant it. So he added mournfully, " I am ready for my duty whenever you wish it, mother ; that is enough." Nevertheless, he dreamt dreams that night as he lay curled up on his short string bed, with the second volume of Avio?- Vincit Omnia under the quilt, so as to be ready for the early summer dawn. Out under the stars in the bare, mud-walled court- yard, destitute to Western eyes of all comfort, he dreamt the dreams of his race — of a gorgeously attired bride, shy, yet alluring, looking at him for the first time. '' Thou hast a nightmare," said his mother crossly, wlien just before daybreak he woke them all by sitting up in his bed and declaiming, Amor vincit omnia in a loud voice. " 'Tis that book under thy head. Put it aside, and lie as thy forefathers lay; they dreamt not of pillows. So shalt thou sleep sound and let others sleep also." She went yawning back to bed, and lay awake till dawn brought work, counting over the savings she had made, and calculating how much she could spare for flowers and sweets and spiced dishes, for all the hitherto unknown luxuries Avhich, according AMOR VINCIT OMNIA 315 to custom, were to make the boy's life a dream of pleasure for a time. Only for a time, since tlie scholarship had to be gained. A month afterwards a red-curtained bridal pal- anquin containing a mysterious bride was carried over the threshold of the little mud courtyard, and Govind Sahai, with a silver triptych on his forehead, his ears tasselled with evil-smelling mari- golds, his scented tinsel coat hung with jasmine chaplets, dismounted from a pink-nosed pony amidst an admiring crowd. That was an end of the spectacle as far as the outside world was con- cerned. Within it was only beginning for those two fond women who had spun and scraped and saved for this great occasion ever since the bride- groom was five years old. Much had to be done ere they would sit down in proud peace knowing that no possible enhancement of delight had been omitted. The boy himself went througli the count- less ceremonies, all tending towards an apotheosis of the senses, with a certain shy dignity ; perhaps the sight of master-y^ doing wedding guest in a copper- coloured alpaca coat gave him confidence by re- minding him that even the learned stoop to folly. He was pale, partly from the turmeric baths, which are supposed to produce a complexion favourable to feminine eyes, partly because he really felt sick after the unusual sloth and sweets of the last few 316 AMOR VINCIT OMNIA days. So much for his physical state. Of his mental condition this much may be presaged : that if either his inherited instincts or his acquired convictions had any reality whatever, it must have been chaos. More chaotic than ever when, far into the night, after endless tests and trials, Nihali, the mysterious bride, proved beautiful as as ? Well, the fact was sure ; only the comparison remained doubtful. The inherited instincts said a peri, the acquired convictions an angel. Both, it will be observed, denizens of another world. But then there are more '' other worlds " than one. ****** " Master Naraj^an Chand hath sent to remind us that school re-opens next week," said Govind's mother when nigh two months had passed ; two months during which the path of life had been smoothed, scented, and decorated for the special use of a l)oy and a girl. Govind Sahai looked up from his Avork, which was, briefly, holding Nihali's slim, ring-bedecked fingers. The fact that he did so on pretence of teaching her to write is of sec- ondary importance. She was undoubtedly a very pretty girl, and her delicate, refined face was at that moment full of adoring tenderness for the lad beside her. Not thirteen at the most, she was taller than English girls of that age, but far more slender, with a figure still following the straight AMOR VINCIT OMNIA 317 lines of cliildliood. Graceful for all that, since her small head poised well over a round throat, and the want of contour was dexterously hidden by masses of jewellery, gleaming through the tinsel-shot veil. Even from Avrist to elbow the thinness of the arm was concealed by the bridal bracelets of white ivory lined with red, whilst the slender ankles beneath the scarlet, gold-bordered petticoat were hung with silver-gilt jingles. A typical bride briefly, arrayed in all attrac- tions, save for the big nose-ring, with its dangling golden spoon hiding the lip. Govind objected to its presence, his mother to its absence — both, curi- ously enough, for the same reason — because it served as a check to indiscriminate kissing- of the bride. The pious widow used to blush over her son's habit of saying good-bye to his wife when he had to leave her for an hour or two. It might be English fashion, warranted by all the love-literature in creation ; it was not decent. Neither did she approve of seeing them, as now, seated together over that ridiculous farce of pothooks. Marriage was one thing, love-making was another, so she spoke sharply. "Well," answered the boy, utterly unabashed, " dost think I have forgotten, amma ja7i? (Mother dear.) Nay ! Nihali hath been hearing my holi- day task half the morning. Hast not— O Nihali? " 318 AMOR VINCIT OMNIA His arm, under cover of the veil, stole round the girl's waist and remained there; — a flagrant breach of decorum which, fortunately for the female ac- complice, remained unnoticed by mother-in-law, who was busy over a knot in a thread she was skeining from her unending pirn. Yet Nihali, despite this aAvful lapse, looked sweet and good enough to fill the heroine's part in any novel, and her looks did not belie her. The past two months had been a fever of delight to Govind. With the curious apathetic resignation to the limitations of custom so noticeable in clever Indian lads whose brains are full of theories, he had accepted marriage in the spirit of his forebears, only to find that Love (with a big L) such as he had read of in books was actually within his reach. To be sure, in books the object was chosen by the lover ; but what did that matter in the end? So he used up all the stock-in-trade of the sentimental novelist for little Nihali's benefit, and she listened to his rhapsodies on perfect marriage and twin souls, her eyes set wide with wonder, admiration, and belief. No "first lady" in white satin could have played her part more prettily than this Indian child of thirteen, who from her cradle had been taught to venerate her husband as a god, and who now, in a sort of rapture, found herself the object of a sentimental passion absolutely novel and bewilder- AMOR YINCIT OMNIA 319 ing. She nestled her sleek head on his shoulder, telling him that she believed every word he said. And so she did ; had he told her the world was flat, instead of explaining to her with great pomp and precision that she was living on an orange de- pressed at the poles, it would have been the same to her. The world she lived in was of his creating. Like most Hindu girls of the higher classes, she had a marvellous memory, and Govind had hardly known whether to be pleased or pained at the dis- covery that, after hearing him read it over a few times, she knew his repetition better than he did himself ; yet, shy of her own exploit, she only replied to his laughing reference to the holiday task by a timid squeeze of the hand still holding hers. Mother-in-law broke the knot with a snap ; a habit with the determined little woman, who there- inafter would twirl the ends together as if nothing had happened. One twist of the thumb, and all was as it had been. " I know not what holiday tasks may mean," she said scornfully. " In my time work was work, and play play. So must it be now. Nihali's people have sent to ask when she returns to them, after established custom. I have answered, 'When school begins.' " They had been so supremely, so innocently happy 320 AMOR VINCIT OMNIA over their pothooks ! And now the consternation on their two young faces was quite piteous. Mother- in-law, however, found it scandalous. Did not all decent girls cry to go home long before the honey- moon was over? Had not she herself wept bit- terly in her time ; and there was Nihali actually snivelling at the idea of leaving ; before her hus- band, too ! And Govind was no better. " It is so soon," pleaded the boy, too much taken aback for instant revolt ; besides, the sit- uation had never come into any of the novels he had read, so he really felt unable to cope with it. His remark only increased the pitch of his mother's voice. Soon, was it? Had he not had two months of billing and cooing, to gain which she and grannie had spun their fingers to the bone ? Soon ! Whose fault was it if time had been Avasted over alphabets and pothooks ? Her shrill tones brought grannie from her labours below, and be- fore these two eminently respectable matrons the guilty pair could only hold each other's hands like the babes in the wood, feeling lost and miserable. That afternoon he went over to the public library, for the first time since his marriage, and spent hours hunting up precedents on the subject, only to re- turn discomfited and hopeless. Nihali would revolt, of course, if he bade her follow his lead ; but how could he bear to have the finger of scorn puinled AMOR viNCiT o:mnia 321 at her by those unacquainted with the theory of perfect marriage and twin souls? That night, when the rest of the little household retired from the roof, leaving the luxury of fresh air to the younger people, he and Nihali sat down under the stars on the still flower-strewn bed, and cried like the children they were. So with awful swiftness the dawn came when Govind had to put on the pale-pink turban pro- claiming him a first-class middle student, and set off to school with his books under his arm ; books, on the whole, less disturbing than Amor Vincit Omnia and its congeners. Nothing fui-ther had been said about Nihali's approaching departure. It was inevitable, of course ; meanwhile, they must make the most of the time left to them. So Govind looked haggard and feverish as he took his accus- tomed place ; nevertheless, being student by nature, the work beguiled him. By evening he was light- hearted enough to run home and race up the crumbling stairs leading to the roof, full of anec- dotes and news for Nihrdi. There was no one to receive them. The roof itself had resumed its normal workaday appearance, and in the very place where the little bride had sat on her lacquered bridal stool, squatted his mother, piecing two broken strands of her skein together as if nothing had happened. x\nd notliing out of the common had 322 AMOR VINCIT OMNIA happened. Whose fault Avas it if Govind flung himself on his face and wept like a babj for what was beyond his reach ? His mother had expected so much when she planned her eoui) d'etat. But he continued to cry — Avhich she did not expect ; for something more complex than simple passion had been aroused in the boy. Of that he might have been ashamed ; in this he gloried. Was it not, in short, a legiti- mate subject for self-glorification ? So he wept himself sick in a subdued docile sort of Avay. Finally, master-y^ called one day in consternation to say that, though painstaking as ever, poor Govind could not remember the simplest problem ; while as for riders, he just sat and looked at them. The scholarship was thus in danger. She tried scolding the boy in good set terms, but he met her reproaches with an invulnerable superiority before which she stood aghast. What was to be done ? Perhaps this spiriting away of the bride in order to avoid a scene had been an error, but was that any reason why she should be requested to return ? To begin with, it would be an appalling breach of etiquette, and then there was the risk of consequences much to be deprecated between such very young people. The whole household, including master-y^, puzzled over the difficulty, winch seemed all the more puz- zling because it was so uncalled for, boys having AMOR YINCIT OMNIA 323 been married at fifteen and sent to school again afterwards since time began without an}^ fuss. But then, those boys had not read A7nor Vincit Oimiia and learnt to mix sentiment with passion. While matters were at this deadlock, Nihali's mother arrived on the scene unexpectedly, and, en petit comite with the women-folk, gave a new turn to affairs. The possibility suggested was in a measure disconcerting, but, on the other hand, afforded Govind's mother an opportunity of re- treating with dignity, since the girl must not be allowed to fret as she had been fretting. The result being that a week afterwards Govind Sahai did a difficult rider in a Avay which made Narayan Chand dream dreams of a future when folk would say, " This eminent man received pri- mary and secondary education at the hands of our most successful teacher of youth. Pundit Narayan Chand." It was a dream he frequently indulged in about his pupils. The little strip of roof was once more frequented by pigeons, and the snappings and joinings of threads relegated for the most part to the court below. Yet the boy's appetite did not return, and as winter came on he developed a teasing cough in that narrow chest of his. The fact was that he burnt the candle of life at both ends in more ways than one. Perhaps if his soul could 324 AMOR VINCIT OMNIA have been left in peace he might have passed through the ordeal safely, as many a boy manages to do in India. But it was not. Poor Govind had no rest. He strung himself up to the highest pitch in obedience to the mixed result of his birth and education. Then on this quivering instru- ment he proceeded to play scales. It was Tausig's exercises on a zither. He had to teach himself, teach Nihali, think of the coming baby, and go through the whole gamut of intellectual and physi- cal emotion of which he had read. The first string gave way when his mother, laughing, crying, and blessing him all in a breath, put a boy bal)y into his arms on his return from school one day. He sat down stupidly on the lowest step of the mud stairs, gazing at what he held in a sort of bewil- dered amaze at finding himself thus, till his mother angrily snatched the child from him, saying he should be ashamed of shedding tears on a new- born baby's face. It was very like Nihrdi, he thought, only years older with all those wrinkles. Then he thought helplessly how he had decided, with Nihali's consent of course, on a thousand contraventions of old customs at this time. Yet there was she upstairs in the hands of the wise women, and the baby ready to be doctored by its grandmother. What could a boy of sixteen do against such odds? So the little proselytising AMOR VJNCIT OMNIA 325 pamphlet he had read was put away with a sigh ; and after all Nihfdi did very well under the old regime. He found her, when the wise w^omen per- mitted him, in the seventh heaven over the baby. Was there ever such a doll, with its little sharp nose and pinched-up lips ! And would he believe it?— the tiny creature was so lazy that grand- mother had to tickle it so — on the mouth — before it would take any interest in the sugar and spices I By and by, when she could nurse it herself, it would be different. She lay smiling at the idea, while downstairs, as they left the house, the gos- sips were shaking their heads and saying calml}^ "It is an unnecessary baby, but a forerunner. Others will come. There is plenty of time." Even when Nihali could not nurse the child, and they had recourse to a Maw's feeder, which Govind, with many blushes, bought at the same shop which supplied him with slate pencils, those two young things feared nothing. He used to bring his books to the roof where she lay with the little quiet mouse of a thing tucked away in her veil. Then, while the sun set red over the dusty city, he worked away at all the " ologies " — worked somewhat feverishly, since more depended now on his success. Sometimes Nihali's smile gurgled over in laughter, and Govind, looking up, would find baby's fingers being clasped round his pen. 326 AMOR VINCIT OMNIA '' Look you," she would whisper, as if in presence of some great potentate, " I asked my lord if he wished to be a writer too, and see how fast he holds ! " There was one thing, however, to which the baby did not hold fast, and that was life. But not till the very day before the eventful examina- tion, which meant so much to Govind, did those two children read fear in each other's faces about that other child. " Oh, Govind ! what shall we do ? what shall we do? " wailed Nihfdi, when the grandmother, see- ing them wild with anxiety, told them the truth, while the great-grandmother stood by wagging her head and mumbling of others by and by. What was that to them now? How he got through the next day he never knew. He took the papers and went with them to his desk ; nay, more, he did his level best with them, nerving himself to the effort chiefly by thoughts of master-y^s disappointment if he failed. But his personal interest in the matter seemed gone ; that was centred on a roof in the dusty city where one child sat crying over another. What were plus or minus to him save a world with or without an unnecessary infant ? All that night was passed beside Nihilli, waiting for his mother's voice to say the end had come ; but the morning found the little sleeper still in AMOR VINCIT OMXIA 327 the young mother's arms. Perhaps there was still hope. He hastily swallowed some breakfast, and, delayed by this hint of respite, found himself five minutes late in the examination-room. The first pa^Ders had already been given out, and to avoid possibility of fraud none save those pres- ent at the issue were allowed to compete. So Govind had to sit idle for a while, knowing he had lost a definite number of chances. Nor was this the worst ; the pause gave him time for thought. Hitherto, once within the familiar walls, old habits of attention and forgetfulness had pos- sessed him. Now, with nothing to do, he remem- bered and yet forgot. So when the order to go up for the second paper came he rose with his brain in a whirl, a wdld desire to cry, ''Let me alone, my baby is dying ! " seeming to blot out everything else in the world. Perhaps had he done so he might have had a chance in the ex- aminers' human pity ; as it Avas he pulled himself together, and failed hopelessly. In the pause before the viva voce he sat looking straight before him, dully conscious that he had done badly. " Govind has never been the same since he mar- ried," whispered one boy, and the other giggled. " Silence ! " cried Narayan Chand fussily. " Govind Sahai, your name is first for vivd. 328 AMOR VINCIT OMNIA Come up, Govind Sahai, Kyasth." Then, as the dull yet anxious face passed him, he whispered : " Now for value of light literature. You are best at colloquial, my pupil, so courage, and remember Afnor Vincit Omnia and such like things." Amor Vincit Omnia ! The boy's last chance fled before those words. When the ordeal was over, he turned back to his place mechanically. As he passed the master-y^* once more, he read his fate in the disappointed face raised to his, then in tlie confident smile of the boy succeeding him, finally in the surprised nudging of the whole class. Something seemed to snap in his brain ; he paused, and, facing the examiners, raised his hand. The rush of thought was too much for him at first ; then he broke silence in a gentle, deprecating voice : " If you will be kind enough to excuse me, Sirs, I will beg leave to retire. Tlie exigencies of the case forbid explanation, but this much is ad- mitted — that Amor vincit omniay " That boy speaks better English than I thought for," said one examiner to the other, when the leave had been granted. " Give him five marks more ; he's failed, of course, but it's as well to be just." When Govind reached home Nihali's arms were empty. There is no need to say more. It Avas an unnecessary infant to all save those two. AMOR VINCIT OMNIA 329 "You have failed, failed badly, my poor pupil, owing, doubtless, to domestic bereavement," said the master-y/, when he called a week or two later full of vexed sympathy. " Such circumstances point to special privilege of entering again next year, for which we will apply. And then, Govind, there must be no killing of birds with one stone. There must be no complicated states of mind, confusing idiom." But Govind Sahai, Kyasth, did not avail him- self of the permission duly given, as the pundit-yi put it, "in consideration of the strictly non- regulation death of his infant at a premature age." The old grandfather, whose small life-pension had been the prop of the household, died of au- tumnal fever, and during the ensuing winter the result of his failure to win the scholarship came home to Govind with depressing force, since even from that poor ten rupees a month something might have been spared to stand between those three fond women and the grindstone, that last resort of poverty. Then Nihali's mother, coming over unexpectedly and finding her daughter at the mill, carried her off in a huff. This time Govind said nothing; the spirit had gone out of him, and for the girl's own sake he gave in to custom. He worked very hard, but as the winter advanced 330 AMOR VINCIT OMNIA liis shoulders seemed to grow narrower and nar- rower, and the teashig cough became louder. Good food, care, and rest might have done some- thing perhaps ; only perhaps, for there is not much to be done when the candle of life is alight at both ends, except to put it out. That is Avhat happened one April morning when the bougain- villea round the arched verandah of the library looked like a crimson drapery. He used to go there every morning before school hours, for the memory of his failure in viva voce rankled keenly, and he was possessed by a curious determination to prove Master Narayan Chand wrong in attrib- uting it to Govind's unwise selection of books. So, secure at those hours from interruption, he used to sit and study the idiom of light literature. " Thou art not fit to go," said his mother tear- fully one morning after the boy had been kept awake all night by cough and fever. *' Reading will not hurt me, amma jan^"" he re- plied, "and the examination is next month." They found him two hours afterwards seated at tlie desk before the ledger, his head resting on a novel he had just been entering in the regis- ter. A horrible stain of blood from the blood- vessel he had ruptured blotted the page, but through it you could still see, in his bold handwriting : Amor Vinclt Omnia. Govind Sahai, Kyasth. THE WINGS OF A DOVE A TALL lanky boy of about seventeen sat half- way down the great flight of steps at the eastern entrance of the Jumma Mosque at Delhi, looking anxiously at a cage full of avitovats, twinkling lit- tle brown birds with a suspicion of red amid their brown ; flitting, slender, silent little birds, never still for a second. He looked at them half-satis- fied, half-doubtful, and as he looked he turned a four-anna bit over and over in his brown fingers. For though he was dressed as a European his complexion was as dark as that of most high-caste natives, and darker by a good bit than that of a girl some one or two years his junior, who sat fondling a pigeon on a higher step, and looking askance, also, at the avitovats. " The Huzoor can have them for five annas if he chooses," said the evil-looking bird-catcher who was squatting among his wares. Though he used the honorific title, his manner was absolutely de- 1 Copyright, 1896, by Macmillan & Co. 331 332 THE WINGS OF A DOVE void of courtesy, and he turned without the least change in it to address a friend in the parrot line, who sat with his cages on the step above. For this particular flight of steps is set apart to the selling of birds, especially after prayer- time on Fri- days, Avhen the pigeon-racers and quail-fighters buy and bet in the wide portico of rosy stone and pale marble. The avitovats — having no value to the sportsman — commanded but a slack sale, so the boy had plenty of time in which to make up his mind ; to judge by appearances a difficult task, for his face was undeniably weak, though hand- some, kindly, and soft. He wore a white drill suit, clean, but sadly frayed ; and his grey Avide- awake was many sizes too large for his small head. Perhaps it was the knowledge of this, combined with a vague suspicion that the hat knew quite as much about bird-fancying as the head within it, which made him, in his perplexity, take it off, place it on his slack knees and drop the four-anna piece into it, as if it had better decide the ques- tion. Sitting so, with bare head, he looked hand- somer than ever, for its shape was that of a young Adonis. It was, in fact, the only thing about him, or his life, whicli corresponded with his name, Agamemnon Menelaus. The surname, Gibbs, used after those eight resounding syllables to come as a shock to the various chaplains who at various THE WINGS OP A DOVE 333 times liad undertaken to look after young Gibbs spiritual welfare. Some of them, the more experi- enced ones, acquiesced in that and many another anomaly after their first glance at his soft gentle face ; for it Avas typical of that class of Eurasian which makes the soul of a chaplain sink within him. Others reached the same conclusion after a reference to the mother, Mrs. Gibbs. She was a very dark, pious woman, tearfully uncertain of all things save that she, being a widow, must be sup- ported b}^ charity ; by the offertory for preference. She, however, made the problem of his name less intrusive by calling him Aggie as if he had been a girl. "They are young birds, as the Hiizoor could see for himself if he had eyes," went on the bird- catcher with a yawn. " Next moulting they will be as red as a initti seed. But it is five annas, not four." Aggie had no lack of eyes outwardly ; they were large and soft as velvet, and as they looked down at the avitovats showed a thick fringe of curling lashes. But there was an almost pathetic guileless- ness in them, and one brown hand hesitated about his breast-pocket. He had another anna there, part of a monthly stipend of one rupee for attending the choir, which he had intended to spend on sweets — preserved pumpkins for choice ; but the 334 THE WINGS OF A DOVE avitovats, with their promise of scarlet phimage, cozened his indolent, colour-loving eyes almost as much as the thought of the sweets did his palate. Should he, should he not? The mere sight of the birds was a strong point in their favour, and his hand had sought the inside of his pocket when a whisper met his ear. " Hens ! " It was unmistakable, and he turned to look at the girl behind him. She was sitting on her heels, crunched up chin and knees, holding her pigeon close to her face as if to hide it. And as he turned she sidled further away along the step wdth the curious gliding shuffle peculiar to native girls and pigeons. '^ Ka-boo-tri, ka-hoo-tri^ ha-hoo-tri^'" gurgled the pig- eon, as if pleased at the motion. It was a blue- rock, showing a purple and green iridescence on the breast, and the girl's dress matched its colour- ings exactly ; for her ragged cotton skirt had washed and worn to a dark neutral tint, and the shot-silk bodice, tattered and torn, with tarnished gold embroidery on its front, took gleams of a past glory from the sunlight. Her veil had faded in its folds to a sort of cinnamon brown, touched with blue, and both it and the bodice were many sizes too large for her slight childish figure. ''If the JIuzoor is not to buy, let him give place to those who will," suggested the bird-catcher THE WINGS OF A DOVE 335 cavalierly. He had been too far to catch the whisper, and thought to clinch the bargain by a threat. Agamemnon Menelaus looked at him nervously. "Are you sure they are young birds?" he sug- gested timidly. " They might, — they might be hens, you know." There was a half -perceptible quiver of his handsome head as if to watch the girl. The bird-catcher broke out into violent assev- eration^^ and Aggie's hand, out of sheer trepida- tion, went into his pocket again. " Hens I " This time there was a ring almost of command in the tone, and Agamemnon obeyed it instinctively by rising to go. " Ka-hoo-tri, ka-hoo-tri,'" came the gurgle of the pigeon ; or was it partly a chuckle from the girl as she sidled still further along the step? " So ! that is good riddance," said the bird- catcher to the parrot-seller, angrily. " God made the rainbow, but the devil made the dye-pot ! Yet I thought I had sold them at last. He looked not so sharp as that." The parrot-seller yawned. "'Twas Kabootri did it," he remarked with bland indifference. " She said 'hens.' " The bird-catcher stared at him incredulously, then passed the look on to the girl Avho still sat Avith the crooning pigeon held close to her face. " Kabootri ? " he echoed with an uneasy laugh. 336 THE WINGS OF A DOVE " Nay, neighbour, 'twas she who told me but an hour ago that if I sold not something this Friday she would kill herself. 'Tis a trick of words she hath learned of her trade," he went on with a curious mixture of anger and approbation. '' But it means something to a man who hath cursed luck and a daughter who has a rare knack of getting her own way." The parrot-seller gave a pull at a bulbul-seller's pipe as if it were his own. " Thou wilt be dis- graced if thou give it her much longer, friend," he said calmly. " 'Tis time she Avere limed and netted. And with no mother either to whack her ! " The uneasy laugh came again. " If the Nawab's pigeon wins we may see to a son-in-law ; but she is a child still, neighbour, and a good daughter too, helping her father more than he helps her." There was a touch of real pride in his tone. " She said ' hens,' " retorted the parrot-seller. " Ask her if she did not." " Kabootri I Kabootri ! " The call was a trifle tremulous, but the girl rose with alacrity, throwing the pigeon into the air with the deft hand of a practised racer as she did so. The bird was practised also, and without a flutter flew off into the blue like an arrow from a bow ; then, as if confused by finding itself with- THE WINGS OF A DOVE 337 out a rival, wheeled circling round the rose-red pile till it settled on one of the marble cupolas. '' What is 't, father ? " she asked, standing on the upper steps and looking down on the two men. She was wonderfully fair, with a little pointed chin, and a wide firm mouth curiously at variance with it, as were the big, broad, black eyebrows with the liquid softness of her eyes. " Why didst say ' hens,' Kabootri ? " replied her father, assuming the fact as the best way of discovering the truth, since her anger at unjust suspicion was always prompt. " Why ? " she echoed absently. " Why ? " Then suddenly she smiled. " I don't know, father ; but I did ! " The bird-catcher broke out into useless oaths. His daughter had the dove's name, but Avas no better than a peacock, a peacock in a thief's house ; she had lost him five annas for nothing. Kabootri's eyebrows looked ominous. ''Five annas ! Fret not for five annas ! " she echoed scorn- fully, turning on her heels towards the gateway; and flinging out her arms she began the pigeon's note — the pigeon's name and her own — '' Ka-hoo-tri, ha-hoo-tri, ka-hoo-tri ! " It was as if a bird were call- ing to its mate, and the answer came quickly in the soft whir of many wings as the blue-rocks, which 338 THE WINGS OF A DOVE live among the rose-red battlements and marble cupolas, wheeled down in lessening circles. " Lo I there is Kabootri calling the pigeons," re- marked an old gentleman, who was crossing city- wards from the Fort ; a stoutish gentleman, clothed immaculately in filmy white muslin with a pale pink inner turban folded across his forehead and showing triangularly beneath the white outer one. He was one of the richest bankers in Delhi ; by religion a Jain, the sect to whom the destruction of life is the one unpardonable sin, and he gave a nervous glance at the distant figure on the steps. " Nay I partner, she was in our street last week," put in his companion, who was dressed in similar fashion ; '' and Kabootri is not as the boys, who are ever at one, with sparrows, for a pice or two. She hath business in her, and a right feeling. She takes once and hath done with it till the value is paid. The gift of the old bodice and shawl, which my house gave her, kept us free for six months. Still, if thou art afraid, we can go round a bit." Kabootri from her coign of vantage saw them sneaking off the main road, and smiled at their caution contemptuously ; but what they had said was true, she had business in her, and right feel- ing. It was not their turn to pay ; so, cuddling a captured pigeon to her breast, she set off in an THE WINGS OF A DOVE 339 opposite direction, threading the bazaars and alleys unerringly, and every now and again crooning her own name softly to the bird which, without a struggle, watched her with its onyx eyes, and called to her again. " There is Kabootri vvdth a pigeon," remarked the drug-seller at the corner to his clients, the leisurely folk with ailments who sit and suggest sherbets to each other, and go away finally to con- sult a soothsayer for a suitable day on which to take their little screw or phial of medicine. " She will be going to Sri Parasnatlrs. It is a while since she was there, and Kabootri is just, for a bird-slayer." Apparently he was right as to her purpose ; for at the turn leading to Sri Parasnath's place of business, she sat down on a step, and after a pre- liminary caress fastened a string deftly to one of the pigeon's feet. Then she caressed it again, stroking its head and crooning to it. Finally with a bound she started to her feet, flang it from her to flutter forlornly in the air, her level black eye- brows bent themselves downwards into a portentous frown, and her young.voice rang out shrilly, almost savagely, '•'-Yahee^ choori-ydh-mdr. Aihee^ clioori-ydli- mdr ! (Hillo I the bird-slayer ! Hullo ! the bird- slayer !) " "Look out, brother," said a fat old merchant in 340 THE WINGS OF A DOYE sjDectacles, who was poring over a ledger in the wooden balcony of an old house. " Look out and see who 'tis. If 'tis Kabootri, thou canst take eight annas from the box. She will not loose the bird for less ; but if 'tis a boy with sparrows, wait and bargain." It was Kabootri, no doubt. Who else but she came like a young tiger-cat down the lane, star- tling the shadowy silence with strange savage threats ? Who but she came like a young Bac- chante, dancing with fury, showing her small white teeth, and, apparently, dragging her poor victim by one leg, or whirling it cruelly round her on a string, so that its fluttering wings seemed like her fluttering veil ? " Give ! Ai, followers of Rishaba, give, or I kill I Ai, Jain people, give, or I take life ! " Sri Parasnath put his turbanless bald head with its odd little tuft of a pigtail over the balcony, and concealing his certainty under a very credit- able show of dismay, called down curses solemnly on her head. He would send for the police ; he would have her locked up and fined. She might take the bird and kill it before his very eyes if she chose, but he would not pay a j^^Ve for its freedom. To all of which Kabootri replied with a fresh method of doing the victim to death. She played her part with infinite spirit, but her antago- THE WINGS OF A DOVE 341 nist was in a hurry to get some orders for Man- chester goods off in time for the English mail, so his performance was but half-hearted, and ere she had well begun her list of horrors, the eight-anna bit came clinking down on the brick pavement, and she, as in duty bound, had to squat beside it and loosen the string from the pigeon's leg. As usual she had to drive it from settling on her head or shoulders by wild antics, until it fluttered to a neighbouring roof, where it sidled along the copings with bright eyes watching her and soft cooings of " ka-hoo-tri^ ka-hoo-tri ! " Once beyond Jain eyes, she always gave back the call so as to assure lierself that no harm had been done. This time by some mischance there happened to be a broken feather in the wing, and her lips set themselves over the task of pulling it out ; that being a necessity to even flight. After which, came renewed caresses with a passion in them beyond the occasion ; for indeed the passion in Kabootri was altogether beyond the necessities of her life — as yet. True, it was not always such plain sailing as it had been with Sri Parasnath. Newcomers there were, even old customers striving in modern fashion to shake themselves free from such deliberate blackmailing, who needed to be re- minded of her methods ; methods ending in pas- sionate tears over her own cruelty in the first quiet 342 THE WINGS OF A DOVE spot she could reach. But of late years she had grown cunning in the avoidance of irretrievable injury. A dexterous slipping of the cord would leave her captive free, and she herself at liberty to go round to some poultry-seller and borrow a poor fowl under sentence of death, with which she would return to unflinching execution. These things had to be, and her young face would be like a Medea's as she did the deed. But even this was of the past, since folk had begun to recognise the uselessness of driving the girl to ex- tremities. Thus her threat, ''I will kill, I will kill ! " brought at most but a broken feather in a dove's wing, and a passionate cuddling of the vic- tim to her breast. This one was interrupted brusquely by a ques- tion : ''Why did you say hens?" It was Aggie. He happened to live close by in a tumble-down tenement Avith two square yards of verandah, which were the mainstay of Mrs. Gibbs' position. They, and the necessity for black- ing Agamemnon Menelaus' boots when he went to the choir, separated her effectually and irrevocably from her native neighbours. He did not sing i^ow, — his voice had begun to crack, — but he looked well in a surplice, and the chaplain knew he would have to pay the monthly stipend in any THE WINGS OF A DOVE 343 case. So, this being Friday, Aggie was on his Avay to evensong, polished boots and all ; they were really the strongest barrier between him and the tall girl with her pretty bare feet who stood up to face him, with a soft, per[)lexed look in the eyes which were so like his in all but expression ; and even that merged into his in its softness and perplexity. " Because, — because they ivere hens," she said with an odd little tremble in her voice. So the two young things stood looking at each other, while the pigeon gurgled and cooed : " Ka- hoo-tri^ ka-hoo-tri^ ka-hootri.^'' II " So, seest thou, Kabootri, thou wilt turn Chris- tian and then I will marry thee." Aggie's out- look on the future went so far, and left the rest to Providence ; the girl's went further. "2Vra/" she commented. ''That is fool's talk. I am a bird-slayer : how could we live without the pigeons and the mosque? Thou hast no money." They were sitting on the flight of steps once more, with a cage full of scarlet avitovats between them, so that the passers-by could not see the hands that were locked in each other behind the cage. " Then I will marry thee, and become a heathen," 344 THE WINGS OF A DOVE amended Agamemnon, giving a squeeze to what lie held. She smiled, and the soft curves of her chin seemed to melt into those of her long throat, as she hung her head and looked at him as if he were the most beautiful thing in her world. '' That is wiser," she said, "and if thou dost not marry me I will kill myself. So that is settled." He gave another squeeze to her hand, and she smiled again. Then they sat gazing at each other across the avitovats, hand in hand like a couple of children ; for there was guilelessness in his eyes and inno- cence in hers. " Lo ! " she said suddenly. " I know not now why I said 'hens.' " She paused, failing to find her own meaning, and so came back to more practical matters. "Thou hadst best be buying the birds, Aga-Meean^ [for so, to suit her estimate of him, she had chosen to amend his name], or folk Avill wonder. And if thou wilt leave them in the old place in the Queen's Gardens I will fetch them away, and thou canst buy them of me again next Friday." There was no cunning in her manner, only a solid grasp on the exigencies of the position. Had he not a mother living in a house with a verandah, and was not her father a bird-seller ? Was lie not at that moment betting on the NaAvab's coming 1 Aga, noble ; Meean, prince. THE WINGS OF A DOVE 345 pigeon-race on the platform above them? Despite these exigencies, however, the past three weeks had been pleasant ; if Aggie was still rather hazy as to the difference between young cocks and old hens, it was from no lack of experience in the buying of avitovats. Kabootri used to give him the money wherewith to buy them, and leave it again in the hiding-place where she found the birds; so it was not an expensive amusement to either of them. And if Agamemnon Menelaus had not grasped the determination which underlay the girl's threats of taking life it was from no lack of hearing them, ay, and of shivering at them. The savage, reckless young figure, startling the sunshine and shadow of the narrow lanes with its shrill cry, " I will kill, I will kill, yea, I will take life I " had filled him with a sort of proud bewilderment, a sacred admi- ration. And other things had brought the same dizzy content with them. That same figure, sidling along the rose-red copings like any pigeon, to gain the marble cupolas where the young birds were to be found, — those young birds which must be taught betimes to play her game of Life and Death, as all her world must be taught to play it, — was fascinating. It was disturbing when it sat close to him" in the Queen's Gardens, eating rose comfits bought out of the blood-money, and cooing to him like any dove, while the pigeons in the 346 THE AVINGS OF A DOVE trees above it called ^^ Ka-boo-triy ka-hoo-tri^'^ as if tliey were jealous. The outcome of it all, however, was, as yet, no more than the discarding of boots in favour of native shoes, and the supplanting of the grey wide- awake by a white and gold saucer-cap which only cost four annas, and lay on the dark waves of the lad's small head as if it had been made for it. Kabootri clasped her hands tight in sheer admira- tion as she watched him go down the steps with the cage of scarlet avitovats ; but Mrs. Gibbs, while admitting the superlative beauty of tlie com- bination, burst into floods of lamentation at the siglit, for it was a symptom she had seen often in lads of Aggie's age. His elder brother had begun that way ; that elder brother who was now a thorn in the side of every chaplain from Peshaw^ur to Calcutta by reason of his disconcerting desire to live as a heathen and be saved as a Christian. So, when Aggie, with a spark of unusual spirit, liad refused to put on the boots which she had made the servant (for, of course, there had to be a servant in a house with a verandah) black with the greatest care ; in other words, when he had refused to go to church, since native shoes and a Delhi cap are manifestly incompatible with a sur- plice, she went over to a bosom friend and wept again. But Mrs. Rosario was of a different type THE WINGS OF A DOVE 347 altogether. She seldom wept, taking life with a pure philosophy, and making her living out of her handsome daughters by marrying them off to the first comer on the chance of his doing well. " There is no — need — to cry," she said com- fortably, in the curious IvdU-staccato, hal^-legato in- tonation of her race. "Your boy is — no — worse than all boys. If they do not get — on — a place or get married they fall — into mischief. God made them — so, and we must bow to — His will, as we are Christians and not heathen. And girls are — like — that too. If they — do — not — get — married they will give trouble. So, if you ask my — advice, I say that if — you — cannot — get your poor boy on — a — place you had better get — him — a — wife, or the bad black woman in the bazaar will — lead — him — to bad ways ; for he is a handsome boy, almost as handsome as my Lily. He is too young, perhaps, and she — is — too — young — too, but if you like he can beau my Lily. You can ask some — one — for — clothes, and then he can beau Lily to the choir. And give a little hop in your place, Mrs. Gibbs. When my girls try me I give hops. It makes them all — right, and your boy — will — be — all — right — too. You live too quiet, Mrs. Gibbs, for young folk ; they will have some pleasure. So get your son nice new clothes, and I — will — give — 848 THE WINGS OF A DOVE a — hop at my place, and send my cook to help yours." This solid sense caused Mrs. Gibbs to lie in wait for the chaplain in his verandah, armed with a coarse cotton handkerchief soaked in patchouli, and an assertion that Aggie's absence from the choir was due to unsuitable clothes. And both tears and scent being unbearable, she went back with quite a large bundle of garments which had be- longed to a merr}^ English boy who had come out to join his parents, only to die of enteric fever. " Give them away in charity, my dear," the father had said in a hard voice, " the boy would have liked it so best himself." So the mother, with hopeless tears over the scarce-worn things, had sent them over to the chaplain for his poor. Thus it happened that before Kabootri had re- covered from her intense delight at the cap, Mrs. Gibbs was laying out a beautiful suit, cut to the latest fashion, to await Aggie's return from one of those absences which had become so alarmingly frequent. There was a brand-new red tie, also a pair of lavender gloves, striped socks, and patent- leather pumps. To crown all, there was a note on highly scented paper with an L on it in lilies of the valley, in which Mrs. Rosario and her daughters requested the pleasure of Mr. Agamemnon ^lenelaus Gibbs' company at a hop that evening. What more THE WINGS OF A DOVE 349 could a young man like Aggie want for his re- generation ? Nothing apparently : it was impos- sible, for instance, to think of sitting on the steps with Kabootri in a suit made by an English tailor, a tall hat, and a pair of lavender kid gloves. Yet the fine feathers had to be worn when, in obedience to the R.S.V.P. in the corner of the scented note, he had to take over a reply in which Mr. Aga- mejnnon Menelaus Gibbs accepted with jjleasure, etc., etc. " Oh, mamma ! " said Miss Lily, who received the note in person with a giggle of admiration, ''I do like him; he is quite the gentleman." The remark, being made before its object had left the tiny courtyard, which the Rosarios dignified by the name of compound, was quite audible, and a shy smile of conscious vanity overspread the lad's handsome face. About the same time, that is to say when the sinking sun, still gloriously bright, had hidden itself behind the vast pile of the mosque so that it stood out in pale purple shadow against a background of sheer sunlight, Kabootri was curled up on a cornice with her back to one of the carven pilasters of a cupola, dreaming idly of Aga-Meean in his white and gold cap. He had not been to the steps that day, so from her airy perch she was keeping a watch for him ; and as she watched, 350 THE WINGS OF A DOVE lier clasp on the pigeon she was caressing tightened unconsciously, till with a croon and a flutter it struggled for freedom. The sound brought other wings to wheel round the girl expectantly, for it was near the time for the birds' evening meal. Sharafat-Nissa, the old canoness Avho lived on the roof below the marble cupolas, had charge of the store of grain set apart for the purpose by the guardians of the mosque ; but as a rule Kabootri fed the pigeons. She did many such an odd job for the queer little cripple, half pensioner, half saint, who kept a Koran class for poor girls and combined it with a sort of matrimonial agency ; for the due providing of suitable hus- bands to girls who have no relations to see after such things is a meritorious act of piety; a lucrative one also, when, as in Sharafat-Nissa's case you belong to a good family, and have a large con- nection in houses where a good-looking maiden is always in request as an extra wife. So, as she taught the Holy Book, her keen little eyes were always on the alert for a possible bride. They had been on Kabootri for a long time ; hitherto, how- ever, that idle, disreputable father downstairs had managed to evade the old canoness. But now that the great pigeon-race of the year was being decided on the grassy plain between the mosque and the Fort, his last excuse would be gone ; for he had THE WINGS OF A DOVE 351 all but promised that, if he lost, Sharafat-Nissa should arrange the sale of the girl into some rich house, while if he won he had promised himself to give Kabootri, who in his way he really liked, a strapping young husband fit to please any girl ; one who, being of her own caste, would allow her the freedom which she loved even as the birds loved it. She, however, knew nothing of this compact. So when the great shout telling of victory went up from tlie packed multitude on the plain, she only wondered with a smile if her father would be swaggering about with money to jingle in his pocket, or if she would have to cry, " I will kill, I will kill," a little oftener than usual. Sharafat- Nissa heard the shout also, and, as she rocked backwards and forwards over her evening chant of the Holy Book, gave a covetous upward glance at the slender figure she could just see among the wings of the doves. Downstairs among the packed multitudes, the shout Avhich told him of defeat made the bird-catcher also, reprobate as he was, look up swiftly to the great gateway which was fast deepening to purple as the sun behind it dipped closer to the horizon ; for one could always tell where Kabootri was by the wheel- ing wings. " Have a care I " he said fiercely to the dis- 352 THE WINGS OF A DOVE creetly-veiled figure that evening as it sat behind the narrow slit of a door blocking the narrow stair, which Kabootri trod so often on her way to and from the roof. " Have a care, sister ! She is not easily limed or netted." A sort of giggle came from the veil. " Yea, brother ! Girls are all so, but if the cage is gilt " It was just a week after this, and the sunlight behind the shadow of the mosque was revelling in sheeny iridescence of her tattered silk bodice, that Kabootri's figure showed clear and defiant against the sky, as she stood on the uppermost, outermost coping of the gateway. There was a sheer fall beneath her to the platform below. She had just escaped from tlie room where she had been caged like any bird for three whole days, and the canoness on the roof below was looking up at her prisoner helplessl}^ " Listen, my pigeon, my beloved I " she wheedled breathlessly. " Come down, and let us talk it over together." " Open the door, I say," came the shrill young voice. " Open, or I kill myself I Open, or I kill I " " Heart's blood ! Listen ! He shall be a young man, a handsome man." Handsome, young ! Was not Aga-Meean young ? Was he not handsome? The thought made her THE WINGS OF A DOVE 353 voice shriller, clearer. " Open the door, or I kill ! Open, or I take life ! " The words were the words of the young tiger-cat that had been wont to startle the sunshine and the shadow, making Sri Parasnath seek his cash-box incontinently ; but there was a new note of appeal in their deter- mination ; for if it was but three days since she had been caged, it was six since she had seen Aga-Meean. What had become of him? Had he sought and missed her? Had he not? " Listen, my bird," came the wheedling voice ; "come down and listen. Kabootri ! I swear that if thou likest not this one I will let thee go and seek another. I swear it, child." The sidling feet edged nearer along the coping, for this respite would at least give time. " Swear it on the Holy Book. So — in thy right hand and in thy left. Let me see it." She stretched her own hands out over the depths, and at the sight the expectant pigeons came wheeling round her. " I swear by God and His prophet," began the old canoness, gabbling as fast as she could over the oath ; but above her breathless mumble came a little shriek, a little giggle, and a girl's voice from below. " Ah, Mr. Gibbs I You are so naughty, so very naughty ! " Kabootri could not understand the words, but the giggle belongs to all tongues, and it jarred upon 354 THE WINGS OF A DOVE her passion, her despair. She looked down, and saw a well-known figure, changed utterly by a familiar, yet unfamiliar, dress. She saw two girls about her own age, with tiny waists, huge sleeves, and hats. It was Aga-Meean, escorting the two Miss Rosarios, who had expressed a desire to see the mosque. And she saw something else ; she saw the look which the prettiest of the two girls gave to Aga-Meean ; she saw the look he gave in return. Her sidling feet paused; she swayed giddily. '' Kabootri ! Kabootri ! " called the woman on the roof, eagerly, anxiously, "I have sworn it. Come down, my pigeon, come down, my dove ! It makes me dizzy." So that was Aga-Meean ! The mistress said sooth; the wings made one dizzy, the wings, — the wings of a dove ! She had them ! For the wind caught the wide folds of her veil, and claimed a place in the wide, fluttering sheen of her bodice, as she fell, and fell, and fell, down from the marble cupolas, past the purple shadow of the great gateway, to the wide platform where the doves are bought and sold. And some of the pigeons followed lier, and some sat sidling on _the coping, calling " Ka-hoo-tri^ ka-hoo-tri.'' But those of them who knew her best fled affrighted into the golden halo of sun- shine behind the rose-red pile. THE SWIMMERS^ " Miriam, Miriam, what is it ? Canst thou not tell a body, bound to a millstone as I ? Thy tongue goes fast enough when I wish thee silent ! " It was a Avoman's voice that was beginning to lose its fulness and sweetness, in other words, its womanliness, which called up from the courtyard, where the hum of the quern grinding the yellow Indian corn deadened all other sounds. '^ It is naught, mother ! Only Hussan and Husayn once more." It was a woman's voice also from the roof where the Indian corn was drying to a richer gold in the sunlight; but it was a voice which had hardly come as yet to its full roundness, in other words, to its perfect womanliness. " Hussan and Husayn ! What makes them be for ever fighting like young cocks ? " There was an instant's pause ; then the voice from the roof came piously, " God knows ! " Probably He did, but Miriam herself might have been less modest as to her knowledge. For the 1 Copyright, 1895, by Macmillan & Co. 365 356 THE SWIMMERS case stood thus. It was a corner house between two sequestered alleys which intersected each other at right angles, and there had been a lingering lover, expectant of some recognition, in each alley. Now, if half-a-handful of golden corn be thrown as a guerdon over the parapet just at the angle, and if the lovers, hot-blooded young sparks, spring forward incontinently to pick up the precious grains and meet, then " Indeed, mother, they were very like cocks," re- marked Miriam gravely, as she stepped daintily down the narrow mud-stairs again to resume her spinning in the courtyard. Once more she spoke truth, but hardly the whole truth ; since when featherless bipeds are picking up grains of corn out of a gutter, they can hardly avoid a resem- blance to feathered ones. So the whir of the wheel joined the hum of the quern, and both formed a background to her sudden girlish laugh at the recollection of what she had seen through the peep-hole in the parapet. The whole thing was a play to this Osmanzai girl, who, for all her seclusion, knew perfectly well that she was the beauty of the village, and that many another spark besides Hussan and Husayn would be only too glad of half-a-handful of Indian corn to pick up out of the gutter. But these two being the most expert swimmers in that quaint THE SWIMMERS 357 bare colony of huts set on a loose shale slope with the wild wicked rush of the Indus at its foot, were, perhaps, the most interesting. That is to say, if you excepted Khasia, the big soft shepherd who came down sometimes from the grassy, fir-crowned slopes higher up the gorge ; the Maha-ban or Great Forest Hills, beyond which lay the Black Mountain. A strange wild country, is this of the Indus gorge, just as the great river begins to think of the level plains in front of it. A strange wild people are those who live in that close-packed, flat- roofed village upon the shale slope, where a foot- fall sends the thin leaves of mica-schist slithering aAvay into the rushing river.. There is no stranger country, no wilder people. For this is Sitana, the place of refuge for every Mohammedan fanatic who finds the more civilised plains too hot even for his fiery faith ; Sitana, the dwelling-place of the Syyuds who, since the days of their great leader Ahmad, have spent their lives in killing every hell-doomed infidel they can get hold of in cold blood. And as the pigs of Hindus live on the other side of the rushing river, it follows that those who kill must also swim, since there is no bridge far or near. That was why Hussan and Husayn, and many another of their sort, with carefully oiled thcAvs and sinews of bronze, would go down the shale slope on dark nights and slip softly into 358 THE SWIMMERS the ice-cold stream. Then, if there was a glint of moon, you could see them caught in the great upward curve of the mad current inshore, the two skin-bladders that Avere slung under their armpits making it look as if six dark heads, not two, were drifting down and down ; yet somehow drifting nearer and nearer to the other side where the pigs of Hindus were to be found. But even a glint of moon kept them, as a rule, talking of future nights — unless there was some cause to raise their reck- lessness to fever-height ; for even that glint was enough to make the police watchers on the other, the English, side slip softly also into the stream, and give chase. A strange, wild chase indeed it was ; down and down in the dark till the blockade was run, or the venture abandoned for another night. Or stranger, wilder still, two men with knives met on the crest of the current and fought a strange, bloodless fight, hacking at the bladders because they were larger than the head, and the loss of them meant equally certain disablement. For there was nothing to be done in that wild stream if they were pricked but to cast them free and dive — to dive down and down past the current, to come up, please God ! nearer Jiome. So, because of those Avatchers on the other side, the Sitana swimmers could not start openly, nor from tlie same place. They went singly, silently, THE SWIMMERS 359 but the next morning ere the light came fully they ^yould all be resting together on the steps of the little mosque ; unless, indeed, some of them had not returned ; were, in fact, to return no more. And the worshippers would be crowding round one or two, perhaps, while the others looked on enviously to hear how some traveller had been hap- pened upon and done to death in the dark upon the undulating tract of low jungle on the other side. Then the worshippers going home would say casually in their houses : " Hussan killed his man last night ; that makes him two ahead of Husayn. And Ahmad, the new one, hath another, so that brings him next to Husayn, who will need to work hard." And the Avomen would gossip about it among themselves, and say that, of course, Miriam, the village-beauty, would choose the best swimmer when the time came for the curious choice which is allowed the Pathan girl among lovers whom she is supposed never to have seen. As yet, however, Miriam had only laughed, and thrown handfuls of yellow corn into the gutter, and said things to the aspirants' female relations which were sure to be repeated, and make the rivalry run fiercer than ever. She did all this partly because of the big shepherd, partly because it was good for the faith to stimulate the young men's courage, but mostly because it amused her. 360 THE SWIMMERS It was far, however, from having that effect on the Englishman who was responsible for the repu- tation of the district over the water. The more so because his name happened to be John Nicholson, and John Nicholson was not a man to allow any increase of crime within his borders without know- ing the reason why, and meting out punishment for the offence. " What the deuce does it mean ? " he said to the trembling native official in charge of that particu- lar portion of the country which lay over against Sit^na. " There have been tAventy murders this quarter against ten in the last. And I told you that for every man killed on our side there were to be two in Sitana. What on earth are your swimmers about? If they are not so good as theirs, get others. Get something ! There must be some fault on your part, or they wouldn't cock their tails up in this way. Remedy it; that is what you have got to do, so don't ask questions as to how it is to be done. I'll back you up, never fear." And then he took his telescope out, as he sat on liis horse among the low bushes down by the rushing river, and prospected before he galloped off, neck or nothing, as his fashion was, to regain his camp thirty miles away, and write an urgent letter to Government detailing fully the measures THE SWIMMERS 361 which he intended to adopt for the repression of these scandalous crimes. Bat even a telescope did not show him Miriam's face as she sat spinning in the courtyard. And the rest of the long, low, flat- roofed village clinging to the shaly slope seemed very much at its usual ; that is to say, the common- place nest of as uncommon a set of religious scoun- drels as could be found north or south. So he told himself that they must have been strength- ened lately by a new contingent of fanatics from the plains, or that the approaching i\Iohurrum-tide had raised their religious fervour to boiling-point. He allowed these reasons to himself, though he permitted none to his subordinate ; but neither he nor the scared police inspector dreamed of that laughing girl's face over the water which was the cause of Hussan and Husayn's unusual activity. Still as he gathered his reins into his left hand he paused to give a more kindly look from under his dark eyebrows at the inspector's knock-knees. " Why don't you get some of their swimmers ? " he asked curtly. "I could." Doubtless he could; he was a man who got most things which he set himself to get. Yet even he might have failed here but for that girl's face, that handful of yellow Indian corn, and the fierce fight which followed for both between those two, Hussan and Husayn, who, as they were finally held back from each 362 THE SWIMMERS other by soothing, friendly hands, felt that the end was nigh if it had not already come. Brothers of the same belief, — fellow- workers in that stream of Death, — first and second alternately in the great race for men's lives, they knew that the time had come when they must be at each other's throat and settle which was to be best once and for all — which was to be best in Miriam's eyes. And then to their blind wrath came an authoritative voice, the voice of the holiest man there, the Syyud Ahmad, whom to disobey was to be accursed. "There is too much of this brawling," came the fiat. " *Tis a disgrace. Lo ! Hussan, Husayn, here among the elders, swear before the Lord to have done with it. Swear that neither will raise hand again against a hand that fights for the same cause. Swear, both of you." A chorus of approval came from the bystanders as those two, thus checked, stood glaring at each other. There were a few grains of the yellow Indian corn still in the gutter at their feet ; and they looked at them as they swore never again to raise a hand against one fighting the good fight. That same day, at dusk, Hussan and Husayn sat on the edge of the stream, their feet almost touching the water, their skin-bladders beside them, their sharp knives hung in a sheath round their necks. Their bronze muscles shone even in the THE SWIMMERS 363 growing gloom ; from head to foot they were lithe, strong, graceful in their very strength. They sat close to each other as they had often sat before, looking out over the tumbling rush of the wild current, to the other side of the river. "Yea I Then I will go forth to-night as thou sayest, Hussan ; and when I return equal, we will draw lots which is to take service on the other side." " So be it, Husayn ; I will wait for thee. And see, if thou couldst kill one of their swimmers, 'twere better. Then will it be easier to get his place. Hit up, brother, from the water ; 'tis more deadly than the downward stroke." And as they sat side by side, speaking quietly, almost indifferently, the evening call to prayer rang out over the wild wicked stream, and without another word they faced round from the river to the western hills. The parapet of Miriam's house stood out higher than the rest of the village. Per- haps they made it the Kaaba of their prayers, though they were orthodox enough in their genu- flexions. "Hussan and Husayn have been made by the Pir sahib, to swear they will not fight any more," said a girl, who giggled as she spoke, to INIiriam when they were coming back with their water-pots from the river. 364 THE SWIMMERS ''Loll! there be plenty others who will," answered the round sweet voice that had not yet come to its full sweetness and roundness. " They are all like fighting-cocks, except the shepherds. Belike 'tis the sheep which make them peaceful, so they have time to laugh. Hussan and Husayn are ever breathless from some struggle. I would not be as they." '' Lazybones ! " retorted the giggler. " Thy mother-in-law will need her tongue. Thy water- pot is but half -full even now." ^' Still, it is heavy enough for my arms," replied the sweet voice indifferently, yet sharply, '' and the river is far." Then it added inconsequently : ^' But there are streams up in the hills that folk can guide to their doors. And the grass grows soft too. Here is nothing but stones ; I hate them , they are so hard." "And the big shepherd's mother is dead," put in another girl pertly ; whereat the rest giggled louder than ever. Was it Hussan or Husayn who, three days after- wards, appeared suddenly before the District-officer in camp with a nicely written petition on a regula- tion sheet of English-made paper, requesting that he might be put on as a swimming patrol on the river opposite Sitana in place of one who was sup- posed to have been killed or drowned? There is THE SWIMMERS 365 no need to know. No need to know which it was who won the toss when Husayn came back with a smile to say that, so far, they Avere quits, and might begin a new game. Whichever it Avas, John Nicholson looked at the lean bronze thews and sinews approvingly, and then asked the one crucial question, " Can you ? " The man smiled, a quick, broad smile. " None better, ffuzoor, on the Indus. There is one, over the water, who deems himself my match. God knows if he is." John Nicholson, who had bent over his writing again, glanced up hastily. " So that is it. Here, Moonshee, write an order to the man at Khanpur to put this man on at once." He was back at his writing almost before the order was ended, and in the silence which followed under the white wings of the tent set Avide to all the winds of heaven, the sound of two pens could be heard. One was the Englishman's, writing a report to headquarters saying that the increase of crime must be checked by reprisals, the other the native's, bidding the inspector put on the bearer as a Government swimmer. " For signature, Huzoor^^ came a deferential voice, and the still-busy pen shifted itself to the shiny paper laid beside it, and the dark, keen, kindly eyes looked up once more for half a sec- 860 THE SWIMMERS Olid. " Well, good luck to you ! I hope you'll kill him, whoever he is." " By the help of God, Huzoo7\ by the help of God ! " Which was it, Hussan or Husayn, who in the growing dusk walked up and down the shaly gla- cis below the long cluster of Sitana, watching the opposite bank with tlie eyes of a lynx for each stone of vantage, each shallow whence a few yards' start might be gained ? Which was it, Husayn or Hussan, who in the same dusk paced up and down the low bank on the other side watching in his turn, with untiring eyes, for the quicker curve of the current where a bold swimmer might by one swift venture drift down faster to the calmer water, and so have a second or two in which to regain breath ere the fight began? What matters it whether the panther was on the western bank and the leopard on the eastern ? They were two wild beasts pacing up and down, up and down, with their feet upon the water's edge ; up and down, up and down, even when the moon rose and their shadows showed more distinctly than they did themselves ; for the oil upon their limbs caught the light keenly like the glistening shale and the glistening wet sand at their feet. Up and down, up and down, they paced, in the still- ness and the peace, with only the noise of the rush- THE SWIMMERS 367 ing river, sliimberously, monotonously, insistent ; up and down, up and down till the cry of the muazzim at dawn came echoing over the water. Prayer is more than sleep! Prayer is more than Ay ! more even than sleeplessness with sheer murder in heart and brain. So peace fell between those two while they turned towards Mecca and prayed ; for what, God knows. Perhaps once more the real spiritual Kaaba was what they saw with the ejes of the flesh ; that flat-roofed house just beginning to blush rosy in the earliest rays of the rising sun ; more probabl}^ it was not, since they had passed through love to hatred. And then, prayers over, murder was over also for the time, since they could not court detection by daylight. "They are wondrous keen on the other side, despite the moon," said the elders of the village and the officials over the way, alike ; " but there is no fear our watchman will be taken at a dis- advantage. He is there from dusk till dawn." " Ay ! " replied wiseacres on either side ; " but when the moon wanes, what then ? " It came even before that, came with a great purple mass of thunder-clouds making the Black ^fountain bej^ond the ^Nlahaban deserve its name, and drawing two pair of eyes, one on either side of the stream, into giving hopeful glances at the 368 THE SWIMMERS slow majestic march of gloom across the sky. It Avas dusk an hour sooner, dawn an hour later than usual that night and day, so there was plenty of time for sheer murder before prayer- time. And as there was no storm, no thunder after all, but only the heavy clouds hanging like a curtain over the moon, a faint splash into the rushing river might have been heard some time in the night, followed b}^ another. Then after a while a cry broke the brooding silence above the hurrying whisper below ; the cry of faith, and fate, and fight. Allah-ho-Akhhar ! AUah-ho-hukk ! Perhaps it was the muazzhn again, proclaiming out of due time that "God is Might and Right" ; or maybe it Avas those two swimmers in the river as they caught sight of each other in the whirling water. If so, Hussan struck upwards from the water, no doubt, and Husayn, mindful of advice, followed suit ; and so the six black heads must have gone drifting down stream peacefully, save for the hatred in the two faces glaring at each other, since the river hid their bloAvs decorously. But there Avas no trace of them on it far or near Avhen the sun rose over the eastern hills, and the big shepherd, singing a guttural love-song, came leaping down the stony path tow^ards Sitana Avith a bunch of red rhododendrons behind his ear. THE SWIMMERS 369 Some days afterwards, however, the native official at the Police Station rode over to see his superior, and reported with a smirk that he had seen through the telescope a great weeping and wailing at Sitana. Two of their swimmers had apparently been killed in fair fight, for their bodies had been brought up for burial from the backwater further down the river ; and as the new man, whom the Huzoor had appointed, had either absconded or been killed also that just made the proportion what his Honour had laid down for future guidance, two to one. " H'm ! " said John Nicholson half to himself, " I wonder which of the two was really the better man." 2b THE FAKEER'S DRUM " 0! most almiglity wictoria^ V.R., reg. hritanni- corum {V.I.^ Kaiser-i-Hmd), please admit hearer to privileges of praising God on the little drum as oc- casion hefitteth^ and your petitioner will ever pray^'' etc. It was written on a scrap of foreign paper duly stamped as a petition, and it did not need the in- terpolation of imperial titles to prove that this was not by any means its first appearance in court. To be plain, it had an " ancient and a fish- like smell," suggestive of many years' acquaintance with dirty humanity. I looked at the man who had presented it — a very ordinary fakeer^ standing with hands folded humbly — and was struck by the wistful expectancy in his face. It was at once hopeful yet hopeless. Turning to the court-reader for explanation, I found a decorous smile flowing round the circle of squatting clerks. It was evi- dently an old-established joke. " He is damnably noisef ul man. Sir," remarked 370 THE fakeer's drum 371 my sarishtidar, cheerfully, " and his place of sittmg close to Deputy-Commissioner's bitngalow. Thus European officers object ; so it is always na-mun- zoor^^ (refused). The sound of the familiar formula drove the hope from the old man's face ; his thin shoulders seemed to droop, but he said nothing. " How long has this been going on ? " I asked. " Fourteen years. Sir. Always on transference of officers, and it is always na-munzoo7\^^ He dipped his pen in the ink, gave it the premonitory flick. ^'Mu7izoor^' (granted), said I, in a sudden de- cision. ^'- Munzoor during the term of my office." That was but a month. I was only a locum teyiens during leave. Only a month, and the poor old beggar had waited fourteen years to praise God on the little drum ! The pathos and bathos of it hit me hard ; but a stare of infinite surprise had replaced the circumambient smile. The faJceer himself seemed flabbergasted. I think he felt lost without his petition, for I saw him fumbling in his pocket as the janissaries hustled him out of court, as janissaries love to do, east or west. That night, as I was wondering if I had smoked enough and yawned enough to make sleep possi- ble in a hundred degrees of heat, and a hundred million mosquitoes, I was suddenly reminded of the proverb "Charity begins at home," It had, with 372 THE fakeer's drum a vengeance. I had thought my sarishtidar s lan- guage a trifle too picturesque ; now I recognised its supreme accuracy. T\\q fakeer was "a damnably noiseful man." It is useless trying to add one iota to this description, especially to those unac- quainted with the torture of an Indian drum. By dawn I was in the saddle, glad to escape from my own house and the ceaseless " Mump a- turn- turn ^'^ which was driving me crazy. When I returned, the old man was awaiting me in the verandah, his face full of a great content; and the desire to murder him, which rose up in me with the thought of the twenty-nine nights yet to come, faded before it. Perfect happiness is not the lot of many, but apparently it was his. He salaamed down to the ground. '•'- Huzoor^'" he said, "the great joy in me created a disturbance last night. It will not occur again. The Pro- tector of the Poor shall sleep in peace, even though his slave praises God for him all night long. The Almighty does not require a loud drum." I said I was glad to hear it, and my self-com- placency grew until I laid my head on the pillow somewhat earlier than usual. Then I became aware of a faint throbbing in the air, like that which follows a deep organ note — a throbbing which found its way into the drum of my ear and remained there — so faint that it kept me on the THE fakeer's drum 373 rack to know if it had stopped or was still go- ing on. " Rumpa-tum-tiim-tum^ rumpa-tum-tum-tum^ rumpa " Even now the impulse to make the hateful rhythm interminable seizes on me. I have to lay aside my pen and take a new one before going on. I draw a veil over the mental struggle which followed. It would have been quite easy to rescind my permission, but the thought of one month versus fourteen years roused my pride. As representative of the '•'almighty wictoria, reg. hritamiicorum,'" etc., I had admitted this man to the privileges of prais- ing God on the little drum, and there was an end of it. But the effort left my nerves shattered with the strain put on them. It was the middle of the hot weather — that awful fortnight before the rains break — I was young — absolutely alone. Every morning as I rode, a perfect wreck, past the fakeers hovel by the gate, he used to ask me if I had slept well, and I lied to him. What was the use of suffering if no one was the happier for it? At last, one evening — it Avas the twenty -first, I remember, for I ticked them off on a calendar like any schoolboy — I sat out among the olean- ders, knowing that sleep was mine. The rains had broken, a cool wind stirred the dripping trees, the fever of unrest was over. Clouds of winged white ants besieged the lamp : what wonder, when the 374 THE fakeer's drum rafters of the old bungalow were riddled almost beyond the limits of safety by their galleries ? But what did I care ? I was going to sleep. And so I did, like a child, until close on the dawn. And then — by heavens, it was too bad ! In the ve- randah surely, not faint, but loudly imperative : " RUMPA-TUM-TUM-TUM ! " I was out of bed in an instant full of fury. The fiend incarnate must be walking round the house. I Avas after him in the moonlight. Not a sign ; the white oleanders were shining in the dark foliage; a firefly or two — nothing more. " Rumpa-tum-tum-tum ! " Fainter this time round the corner. Not there ! ''^ Mumjm-tum-tum-tum ! '^ A mere whisper now, but loud enough to be traced. So on the track, I was round the house to the verandah w^hence I had started. No sign — no sound ! Gracious ! what was that ? A crash, a thud, a roar and rattle of earth I The house I the roof ! When by the growing light of dawn we in- spected the damage, Ave found the biggest rafter of all lying right across the pillow where my head had been two minutes before. The first sunbeams were on the still sparkling trees when, full of curi- osity, I strolled over to the fakeers hut. It also THE pakeer's drum ' 375 was a heap of ruins, and when we dug the old man out from among the ant-riddled rafters the doctor said he had been dead for many hours. This story may seem strange to some ; others will agree with my sarishtidar, who, after spending the morning over a Johnson's dictionary and a revenue report, informed me that "such catas- trophes are but too common in this unhappy land after heavy rain following on long-continued drought." AT HER BECK AND CALL " What is your name ? " I asked. "Phooli-jan, Huzoo}\'' she answered, with a brill- iant, dazzling smile. I sat looking at her, wondering if a more ap- propriate name could have been found for that figure among the anemones and celandines, the primulas, pansies, and pinks — the thousand-and- one blossoms which, glowing against their ground- work of forget-me-not, formed a jewel-mosaic right to the foot of the snows above us. Floiverful life ! Truly that was hers. She had a great bunch of scarlet rhododendron stuck behind her ear, match- ing the cloth cap perched jauntily on her head, and as she sat herding her buffaloes on the up- land she had threaded chaplet on chaplet of ox- eyed daisies, and hung them about her Avherever they could be hung. The result was distinctly flowerful ; her face also was distinctly pretty, dis- tinctly clean for a Kashmiri girl's. But coquette, flirt, minx, was written in every line of it, and 376 AT HER BECK AND CALL 377 accounted for a most unusual neatness and bright- ness. She caught my eye and smiled again, broadly, innocently. '' The Huzoor would like to paint my picture, wouldn't he ? " she went on, in a tone of certainty. ^' The Sahib who came last year gave me five rupees. I will take six this year. Food is dear, and those base-born contractors of the Maharajah seize everything — one walnut in ten, one chicken in ten." But I was not going to be beguiled into the old complaints I could hear any and every day from the hags of the village. Up here on the murg, within a stone's-throw of the first patch of snow picketing the outskirts of the great glacier of Gwashbrari, I liked, if possible, to forget how vile man could be in the little shingle huts clustering below by the river. I will not describe the place. To begin with it defies description, and next, could I even hint at its surpassing beauty, the globe- trotter would come and defile it. It is sufficient to say that a murg is an upland meadow or alp, and that this one, with its forget-me-nots and sparkling glaciers, was like a turquoise set in dia- monds. I had seated myself on a projecting spur, whence I could sketch a frowning defile north- wards, down which the emerald -green river was 378 AT HER BECK AND CALL dashing madly among huge rocks crowned by pine- trees. " I will give live rupees also ; that is plenty," I remarked suavely, and Phooli-jan smiled again. "It must do, for I like being painted. Only a few Sahibs come, very few ; but whenever they see me they w^ant to paint me and the flowers, and it makes the other girls in the village angry. Then Goloo and Chuchchu " Here she went off into a perfect cascade of smiles, and began to pull the eyelashes off the daisies deliberately. Tliere seems a peculiar temptation in girlhood for cruelty towards flowers all over the world, and Phooli-jan was pre-eminently girlish. She looked eighteen, but I doubt if she was really more than sixteen. Even so, it was odd to find her unappropriated, so I inquired if Goloo or Chuchchu was the happy man. "My mother is a widow," she replied without the least hesitation. " It depends which will pay the most, for we are poor. There are others, too, so there is no hurry. They are at my beck and call." She crooked her forefinger and nodded her head as if beckoning to some one. For sheer light- hearted, innocent enjoyment of her own attraction I never saw the equal of that face. I should have made my fortune if 1 could have painted it there AT HER BECK AND CALL 379 in the blazing sunlight, framed in flowers ; but it was too much for me. Therefore, I asked her to move to the right, further along the promontory, so that I could put her in the foreground of the picture I had already begun. " There, by that first clump of iris," I said, point- ing to a patch of green sword-leaves, where the white and lilac blossoms were beginning to show. She gave a perceptible shudder. "What? Sit on a grave! Not I. Does not the Huzoor know that those are graves? It is true. All our people are buried here. We plant the iris over them always. If you ask why, I know not. It is the flower of death." A sudden determination to paint her, the Flower- ful Life against the Flowerful Death, completely obliterated the knowledge of my own incompe- tence ; but I urged and bribed in vain. Phooli- jau would not stir. She would not even let me pick a handful of the flowers for her to hold. It was unlucky; besides, one never knew what one might find in the thickets of leaves — bones and horrid things. Had I never heard that dead peo- ple got tired of their graves and tried to get out ? Even if they only wanted something in their graves they would stretch forth a hand to get it. That was one reason why people covered them up with flowers — just to make them more contented. 380 AT HER BECK AND CALL The idea of stooping to cull a flower and shak- ing hands with a corpse was distinctly unpleasant, even in the sunlight ; so I gave up the point and began to sketch the girl as she sat. Rather a difficult task, for she chattered incessantl}^ Did I see that thin blue thread of smoke in the dark pall of pine-trees covering the bottom of the val- ley? That was Goloo's fire. He was drying orris root for the Maharajah. There, on the opposite viurg^ where the buffaloes showed dark among the flowers, was Chuchchu's hut. Undoubtedly, Chuch- cliu was the richer, but Goloo could climb like an ibex. It was he whom the Huzoor was going to take as a guide to the peak. He could dance, too. The Huzoo?' should see him dance the circle dance round the fire — no one turned so slowly as Goloo. He would not frighten a young lamb, ex- cept when he was angry — well, jealous, if the Huzoor thought that a better word. By the time she had done chattering there was not a petal left on the ox-eyed daisies, and I was divided between pity and envy towards Goloo and Chuchchu. That evening, as usual, I set my painting to dry on the easel at the door of the tent. As I lounged by the camp fire, smoking my pipe, a big young man, coming in with a jar of buffalo milk on his shoulder and a big bunch of red rhododendron be- AT HER BECK AND CALL 381 hind his ear, stopped and grinned at my caricatnre of Phooli-jan. Five minutes after, down by the servants' encampment, I heard a free fight going on, and strolled over to see what was the matter. After the manner of Kashmiri quarrels, it had ended almost as it began ; for the race love peace. That it had so ended was not, however, I saw at a glance, the fault of the smaller of the antago- nists, who was being forcibly held back by my shikari. " Chuchchu, that man there, wanted to charge Goloo, this man here, the same price for milk as he does your honour," explained the shikari elabo- rately. " That was extortionate, even though Go- loo, being the Huzoor's guide for to-morrow, may be said to be your honour's servant for the time. I have settled the matter justly. The Huzoor need not give thought to it." I looked at the two recipients of Phooli-jan's favour with interest — for that the bunches of red rhododendron they both wore were her gift I did not doubt. They were both fine young men, but Goloo was distinctly the better-looking of the two, if a trifle sinister. Despite the recommendation of my shikai'i to cast thought aside, the incident lingered in ni}^ memory, and I mentioned it to Phooli-jan when, on returning to finish my sketch, I found her 382 AT HER BECK AND CALL waiting for me among the flowers. Her smile was more brilliant than ever. " They will not hurt each other," she said. " Chuchchu knows that Goloo is more active, and Goloo knows that Chuchchu is stronger. It is like the dogs in our village." "I was not thinking of them," I replied; "I was thinking of you. Supposing they were to quarrel with you ? " She laughed. " They will not quarrel. In sum- mer time there are plenty of flowers for everybody." I thought of those red rhododendrons, and could not repress a smile at her barefaced wisdom of the serpent. " And in the winter time ? " ''Then I will marry one of them, or some one. I have only to choose. That is all. They are at my beck and call." Three years passed before recurring leave en- abled me to pay another visit to the murg. The rhododendrons were once more on the uplands, and as I turned the last corner of the pine-set path which threaded its way through the defile I saw the meadow before me, with its mosaic of flowers bright as ever. The memory of Phooli-jan came back to me as she had sat in the sunshine nodding and beckoning. AT HER BECK AND CALL 383 " Phooli-jan? " echoed the okl patriarch who came out to welcome me as I crossed the phink bridge to the village, '' Phooli-jan, the herd-girl? Huzoor^ she is dead ; she died from picking flowers. A vain thing. It was at the turn beyond the miirg^ Iluzoor^ half-way between Chuchchu's hut and Goloo's drying stage. There is a big rhododen- dron tree hanging over the cliff, and she must have fallen down. It is three years gone." Three years ; then it must have happened almost immediately after I left the valley. The idea up- set me ; I knew not why. The miirg without that Flowerful Life nodding and beckoning felt empty, and I found myself wondering if indeed the girl had fallen doAvn, or if she had played with flowers too recklessly and one of her lovers, perhaps both It was an idea which dimmed the sun- shine and I was glad that I had arranged not to remain for the night, but to push on to another meadow, some six miles farther up the river. To do so, however, I required a fresh relay of coolies, and while my shikari was arranging for this in the village I made my way by a cross-cut to the promon- tory, with its patches of iris. Deaths are rare in these small communities, and there were but two or three new graves — all but one too recent to be poor Phooli-jan's. That, then, must be hers, with its still clearly defined 384 AT HER BECK AND CALL oblong of iris, already a mass of pale purple and white. I sat down on a rock and began, unromantically, to eat my lunch, finishing up with a pull at my flask, and thus providentially fortified, I stooped, ere leaving, to pick one or two of the blossoms from the grave, intending to paint them round the sketch of the girl's head which I had with me. Great heavens ! what was that ? I turned positively sick with horror and doubt. Was it a hand ? It was some time before I could force myself to set aside the sheathing leaves and settle the point. Something it was, something which, even as I parted the stems, fell to pieces, as the skeleton of a beckoning hand might have done. I did not stay to see more ; I let the flowers close over it — whatever it was — and made my way back to the village. My baggage, having changed shoulders, was streaming out over the plank bridge again, and in the two first bearers, carrying my cook-room pots and pans, I recog- nised Goloo and Chuchchu. They had both grown stouter, and wore huge bunches of red rhododen- dron behind their ears. I found out, on inquiry, that they were both married and had become bosom friends. I have not seen the turquoise set in diamonds since, but I often tliiuk of it, and wonder what it AT HER BECK AKD CALL 385 was I saw among tlie iris. And then I seem to see Phooli-jan sitting among the flowers, nodding her head and saying, " Tliey are at my beck and call/' If I were Goloo or Chuchchu, I would be buried somewhere else. 2c MUSIC HATH CHARMS^ It was the very last place in the world where you would have expected to hear the notes of a church harmonium ; and the old man who, seated on a reed stool, was playing God Save the Queen with one linger, was the very last person whom 3^ou would have expected to see performing upon it. But there it stood, quite at home, between, the wooden pillars which divided the central living- room from the crowd of latticed closets around it ; and there he sat, quite at home, on the stool, his naked brown legs struggling with the bellows, his brown fingers patting down the keys with a sort of pompous precision. For Punoo was a music-master, and that was his pupil who, with a yawn, was watching his proceedings from the iloor while she threaded beads on a string inter- mittently. That was also the last place from which one would expect any one to take a music-lesson ; but old Punoo being blind was fully persuaded that Bahani was dutifully at his elbow. This 1 Copyright, IbiiG, by Macmillaii & Co. 386 MUSIC HATH CHARMS 387 blindness of his was, however, far more to his advantage than his disadvantage as a master. It was, in short, the cause of his being one at all ; since had he had the use of his eyes no mother would have dreamed of employing a man, who was not more than forty-five at the outside, in teach- ing her girls. As it was, his time was fully taken up in the houses of the clerks, contractors, barris- ters, and such like, who for some reason or another desired to impart the exotic accomplishment of music to their daughters or wives. But of all these houses Punoo loved the one which contained the harmonium best ; not because of his pupil, since Bahani, who was betrothed to a young man who might be seen any day on a Hammersmith omnibus over on the other side of the world, never learned anything ; but because of the instrument itself. To tell truth it had quite a fine tone, es- pecially when all the wind in its wheezy bellows was sent into one note. And then the playing of it seemed to satisfy him from head to foot. All the other instruments, the accordions and concer- tinas, even his own fiddle with seven strings, of which he was really very fond, only employed his head and his hands ; but this made his whole body as it were to toil and labour after melody. As he sat, his forehead bedewed with perspiration, the expression on Ids sightless face, turned upwards all 388 MUSIC HATH CHAKMS unconscious of the clingy, sordid, smoke-blackened rafters wliicli limited his vision, was quite sufficient to make up for the lack of it in the music ; it was the expression of a prisoner who, through the bars of a cage, sees freedom. But the odd little gridiron in the centre of the dark room, which gave it some light and air from the roof above, was scarcely large enough to allow even of Punoo's wizened figure to pass through. " Lo, it gives one a melting of the liver, and a sinking of the heart to hear thee, Master-jee," re- marked Mai Kishnu, bustling in with a handful of radishes for the pickle-stew. " Canst not play something more lively, something that goes not wombling up and down like an ill-greased wheel, something with a count in it that gives a body time to catch the beat of it ? For sure I could make better music with my ladle and tray ; better music for a bride anyhow ; and mark my word, Bahani, when thou art really one there shall be none of this hoo-hooing and ow-wowing^ that might set free thoughts of Avolves and God knows what monsters to damage all thy hopes." " 'Tis not likely, Mai," said Punoo, desisting to speak with great dignity, " that Bahani will have mastered so much. 'Tis not given to all to play God Save the Queen as I do." '' That is good hearing ! " ejaculated the house- MUSIC HATH CHARMS 389 mother piously. ^' But the girl gets on, I hope, Master Punoo. Her fatlier writes of it often ; and the instrument, as thou knowest, cost fully ten shillings." In Punoo's account, which he retailed to his other customers, it had cost five times that amount, and he had a spirited description of the auction where Colonels and Deputy-Sahibs, and Barrack- Masters had bidden in vain against Bahani's father Mool Chand, who was municipal clerk in an out- lying district. According to Punoo also it had cost five hundred times that amount when the Padre Sahib, — sometimes it was the Lord Padre Sahib— (the Bishop), —had sent for it originally from England. There was a further legend, vague and misty even to himself, which he kept holy, as it were, from profane use by locking it away in his own breast, which hinted that the harmonium had been thrown on the market from no desire to get rid of it, but simply from pecuniary neces- sity ; the Chaplain having been forced into selling his greatest treasure in order to pay the bill for a new one. To tell truth, Punoo's estimate of the harmonium was vague and misty on more points than this. He was, in fact, absolutely igno- rant of anything concerning it, save that if you blew persistently at the bellows and pressed the keys it made a noise which somehow or other 390 MUSIC HATH CHARMS seemed to set 3^ou free, and yet kept you longing for something more. Punoo knew not for what, having not the slightest idea that he had been born with music in his soul, and that if he had first seen tlie light in the Western hemisphere in- stead of the Eastern, he would most likely have been a Wagnerite or some other kind of musical enthusiast. As it was, to oblige Mai Kishnu he played Mmnia Punnieya as quickly as he could, though it was a pain and grief to him to give up the long- di'awn notes which sounded so beautiful in God Save our Crracious Queen. But Mai Kishnu stirred the pickle-stew to the new rhythm, emphasising it properly with little strokes of the ladle upon the resounding brass pot. Bahani, she said, must learn that tune against her man's return from being made into a halester (barrister) ; whereat Bahani with the utmost decorum giggled and blushed over her beads. She was a pretty, pert girl, who looked upon the future with perfect serenity ; for being married to her first cousin whose widowed mother lived in the house, she knew exactly what the amount of friction between her and her future mother-in-law would be ; and knew also that she would generally be able' to escape quietl}^ as she did now, from the scene of conflict, and leave the two elder women to have MUSIC HATH CHARMS 391 it out at full length if they chose. They gener- ally did choose, because they nearly always had an interested audience ; for the quaint rambling old house with its rabbit-warren of tiny rooms open- ing- out to little bits of roof, was full of relations ; chiefly women whose husbands were away in Gov- ernment employ. They each had a separate lodg- ing, as it were, though they were quite as often in some one else's room as in their own, especially when the sound of shrill altercation echoed through the wooden partitions. By a recognised etiquette, however, all serious disputes were carried on in the well-room where the women bathed. It was more a verandah than a room, though the arches were filled up breast-high with a screening wall. But through the hole in the floor, above which the windlass stood, you could not only see right down into the well on the basement story, but also see the people in the street coming for their water. It was when Bahani was discovered lying flat on the floor so as to crane over and peep into the very street itself, that the fiercest quarrels arose between Mai Kishnu and her widowed sister-in- law. And no quarrel ever ran its course without a reference of some sort to the harmonium, and the iniquity and idiotcy of learning to play tunes as if you were a bad woman in the bazaar. In her heart of hearts Mai Kishnu agreed with this 392 MUSIC HATH CHARMS view of the question, but she would sooner have died than confess it, so she invariably carried the war into the enemy's country instead, by insist- ing on it that Bahani learned in deference to the oft-expressed desire of her lawful husband, that husband being the complainant's own son. And sometimes, but not often, for she was a faithful defender of the absent municipal clerk, she would clinch the matter by telling her sister-in-law that if there was iniquity or idiotcy about, her brother was also to blame. Whereupon Radha, who, being the widow of an elder brother, really was, in a way, the head of the house, would retort that in that case it was all the more necessary for the women-folk of the family to remember that the salvation of souls lay with them ; so she would beg to remind all pres- ent, that this being a dark Saturday or a light Fri- day, with some particular event in prospect or some particular event in the past, it behoved no pious women of that family to eat, say radishes, on that day. Now, when you have just spent much time and skill in the preparing of pickles for a large household, it is aggravating to be told that it is an impious diet. Still there was always the obvious retort that on such days widows ate nothing at all. So then Radha, with pharisaical acquiescence, would retire to her own little bit of a room, with her husband's photograph (he had been a clerk MUSIC HATH CHARMS 393 also) hung between two German prints of the Madonna and Herodias' daughter (which did duty respectively for the infant Krishna and Durga Devi slaying the demons) and begin counting her beads with a clatter, and repeating her texts in an aggressively loud voice ; while Mai Kishnu, after sending the pickle-stew of radishes down in the window-basket as an alms to the first beggar in the street, would begin to cook something else ; something as nasty as her deft hands could make it, since this, oddly enough, relieved her feelings. But Punoo would go on playing Grod Save our G7'acious Queeyi on the old harmonium with per- fect serenity, all unconscious of the fact that two women were cursing it in their hearts as a malevo- lent demon bent on ruining the household. It was a quaint household when all was said and done, this colony of women, whose husbands were for the most part away serving the Government in remote stations. Quaintest of all it was, perhaps, when in the afternoon the boys belonging to it (and there were many, thank Heaven ! despite the demon) came home from school ; embryo clerks full of classes and examinations, yet with a word or two for " crickets " and a desire for pickled radishes on every day in the calendar. "Ask your Aunt Radha," Mai Kishnu would say shortly to their remonstrances over the nasty 394 MUSIC HATH CHARMS substitute for the delicacy. '''Twas she forced me into giving your stoniachsful of my best pickles to some dirty beast of a beggar in the street. God forgive me if he was a holy man, but he may have been a Mohammedan for all I know, and what good will that do to my soul ? " But despite the '' crickets " and the examina- tions, despite the vague leavening of Western free- thought, the boys fought shy of their Aunt Radha, perhaps from the veil of uncertainty \vhich their education Avas necessarily throwing over all things. There were so many ideas, and one must be right ; it might be this one. In a way they were more afraid of her and her views than Mai Kishnu was, who never doubted at all. But then Mai Kishnu knew that she could always have the upper hand over her sister-in-law in the matter of cold baths in the winter mornings ; for Radha thought twice about interfering with the beams in other folks' eyes, when the mote of her own about warm water for religious ablutions was ready to her adversary's hand. The boys, however, though they ate the nasty substitute for pickles without more ado, were not so biddable in the matter of God Save the Queen, As they sat on the dark flight of steps between the living-room and the well-verandah they used to pipe away at it in English in the oddest fal- MUSIC HATH CHAllMS 395 setto. And Bahani, who was a bit of a tomboy, would imitate them, and then go into fits of shrill laughter at her own gibberish. Altogether it was a very quaint household, and it was a very quaint noise indeed which went up to high Heaven from it ; the boys' voices, Bahani's mocking laugh, Radha's muttered texts, Mai Kishnu's vexed clattering of her ladles and pots, and blind Punoo's perspiring efforts after melody on the old harmonium. For he never at- tempted liarmony; that was beyond his self-taught execution altogether. But the sense of it was there, showing itself in sheer delight at pulling out all the stops that still existed, and blowing away till he could no more from sheer exhaustion. So the years had passed contentedly enough for every one ; especially for the old music-master who every day went away with the unleavened cake, which was his only fee, knowing that even sucli payment was in excess of his desires, since it was enough for him to have the honour and glory of playing on the harmonium, and of boasting about his proficiency on that instrument to his other pupils who were forced to be content with an accordion or some such ignoble instrument. And then one day the funny, old rambling house was in a perfect ferment of preparation, and even Radha's face was beaming ; for her son was coming 39G MUSIC HATH CHARMS home. He was coming from the Hammersmith omnibus and the boarding-house in Notting Hill, coming from the rush and roar of London to take up the threads of life again in the dark latticed rooms where Mai Kishnu made pickles and his mother said her prayers ; above all Avhere Bahani waited for him, all dyed with turmeric and henna, and clothed in tinselled garments. The little household temple up on the roof, where there were more German prints doing duty as various gods and goddesses, had scarcely an instant's res- pite from the multitudinous rituals ; and if there was a minute or two to spare, the women down- stairs were sure to remember something else which if left undone would bring the most direful mis- fortune on the young couple. There was no quar- relling now, only a babel of shrill kindly voices. And there was no music, save of a kind to which Mai Kishnu could clatter her ladles and pans ; drubbings of drums and endless tinklings of sutaras — for the good lady had set her foot down as re- gards the harmonium, even to the extent of show- ing off Bahani's accomplishment. Accomplishment forsooth ! What need was there of such fools' talk between a newly -met young couple ? And though Gunesha had come back from the other side of the world dressed like a real Sahib, that did not prevent his being a young man, and know- MUSIC HATH CHAlliyiS 397 ing a pretty bride when he saw one. So, thank heaven ! there they were at last, in the pleasant cool upper room on the roof, which had been all newly whitewashed and painted and strewn Avith flowers for the auspicious occasion, looking into each other's eyes as young people should. It was all so proper, so touching, so infinitely satisfactory, that for once Kishnu and Radha fell on each other's necks and wept tears of sympathy. But Punoo wandered in and out as a privileged guest among the merry-making and the bustle, sid- ling up to his closed treasure, feeling it all over in sightless fashion, and longing for the time when he should be called upon, as the bride's master, to dis- play her accomplishment ; for by this time she could play Minnia Punnieya and a few other tunes quite correctly. But the days passed, and those two on the roof, despite music and culture, despite all the sciences and all the 'ologies, were quite content with those things which had contented their fathers and mothers before them. It was not so with old Punoo. Even his fiddle afforded him no comfort ; and though his other pupils' accordions and concertinas gave him the correct musical intervals which his ear ap^Droved instinctively, but which his hand was too unpractised to reproduce with the accuracy which satisfied him, they were poor substitutes for that splendid tone which was born of vehement pumping and perspira- 398 MUSIC HATH CHARMS tion. Perhaps it Avas really the latter he craved ; that feeling of labouring body and soul to give expression to something within him. Even billing and cooing like a couple of pigeons on the roof, however, must come to an end, and after some three weeks of it, the barrister one day dis- covered that there was a harmonium in the dark arches of the living-room. He Avas beginning by this time to think that he had perhaps drifted a little too far back into the old life, and that as he had every intention, when this first very natural and in- evitable relapse was over, of setting up house on more civilised lines, it might be as well to show off his new habits a little, and so emphasise the difference which he meant to draw between his life and the life led in the quaint old ancestral house. So without more ado, without any asking of how it came there, or who played on it, he whisked his coat-tails (for he had resumed European dress on his descent from the roof) over the music-stool with the consummate air of a performer and set his feet to the pedals and his hands to the keys. "What a wheezy old thing!" he cried, when a sort of agonised moo as from a sick cow came in re- sponse. Bahani, standing decorously in the shadow with her veil down in most alluring bashfulness, tittered, and old Punoo, who had stood still in sheer surprise, moved forward with a superior smile. MUSIC HATH CHARMS 399 The barrister heard and saw, and a frown came to his self-satisfied face. "The bellows are leaking," he cried again ; '' but never mind, it shall do some- thing ; ni make it ! " Something indeed ! The women giggled and stopped their ears, but old Punoo stood transfixed, a great pain, a great joy coming to his sightless face. Was that the harmonium ? Was that G-od Save the Queen^ that pa^on of melody and harmony together, coming in great waves of sound and bearing him away, further and further and further into some un- known land that was yet a Land of Promise ? And all these years he had lived in ignorance ; he had boasted, he had said that he could play it, his price- less treasure ! Priceless I ay, he had been right there. Listen to it ! Was it not priceless ? A sort of passion of pride surged up in him overpowering all thought of himself. Then there was a loud crack, a wheeze, a sudden silence ; and the barrister stood up wiping his fore- head, for he had worked hard. " That has done for the old thing," he said with a laugh ; " but it was past work anyhow, and I prefer a piano any day of the week. Don't stand in the corner, Bahani. You must learn to behave like an English lady now, and there is nothing to be ashamed of in your husband, I assure you." Mai Kishnu and Radha looked at each other as if 400 MUSIC HATH CHARMS for support, and the vague affright and sheer surprise of their faces made them once more sympathetic. " It is a new workl, sister," whispered the one to the other as they moved off respectively to their prayers and their pickles, leaving the barrister making love to liis bride over the prospect of the piano he was going to give her. But Punoo moved softly, blindly, over to his old seat and set his feet to the pedals and his fingers to the keys. But no sound came from them, not even that poor travesty of Grod Save the Queen which had once filled him with pride. And as he sat fingering the dumb keys, idly, a dim content that it should be so came into the old musician's soul. The swan-song had been beautiful, but it had been a song of death. He, after all, had. known the harmonium best. On the face of the Waters FLORA ANNIE STEEL Author of ^^ Miss Stuarfs Legacy^'' ^^ The Flozver of Forgiveness^* ''Red Rozvajis,^^ " Tales from the Punjab^'' etc., etc. (2mo. Cloth. $1.50 " We have read Mrs. Steel's book with ever-increasing surprise and admiration. It is a most wonderful picture. We know that none who lived through the mutiny will lay it down without a gasp of admiration, and believe that the same emotion will be felt by thousands to whom the scenes depicted are but lurid phantasmagoria." — 77/^ Spectator. " Mrs. Steel has written a fine novel, whose scene is laid in the world Mr. Kipling was the first to make real to us. . . . Books like this are so rare that it is difficult to welcome them too warmly." — Pall Mall Gazette. " A picture glowing with colour, of the most momentous and dram- atic event in all our Empire's later history." — Daily Chronicle. "There is no arrest in the march of her narrative ; there is no need- less display of historical knowledge. No one knows India better than Mrs. Steel." — Daily Telegraph. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK I MISS STUART'S LEGACY BY FLORA ANNIE STEEL l2mo. Cloth. $1.50 "A story of British life in India which is unusually good. . . . The strength of the story lies in the study of characters, which is fine and highly sympathetic in its interest, and in the descriptions of Indian life, which seem more realistic than any we have met with before." — The Cincinnati Comtncrcial Gazette. "Those who have read Mrs. Steel's short stories will be prepared to receive her novel, 'Miss Stuart's Legacy,' as very good, and no disappointment awaits them. . . . There is no novel-writing English- woman who has better material than Mrs. Steel, and what other makes better use of such material than she has?" — The Boston Herald. " The story is a delightful one, with a good plot, an abundance of action and incident, well and naturally drawn characters, excellent in sentiment, and with a good ending. Its interest begins with the opening paragraph, and is well sustained to the end. Mrs. Steel touches all her stories with the hand of a master, and she has yet to write one that is in any way dull or uninteresting." — 7he Christian at Work. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK The Flower of Forgiveness AND OTHER STORIES BY FLORA ANNIE STEEL l2mo. Cloth. $1.50 " Each story in this volume is a Hterary gem, and the reader will find a strange, weird fascination on every page." — Boston Daily Advertiser. " Mrs. Steel has caught a glimpse of the mental operations of the followers of Brahma or Mohammed, and in the 'Flower of Forgive- ness' reveals to us the poetic side of the Hindoo's nature as no other writer with whom we are famihar has revealed it. These stories have the charm of mystical poetry ; they are studies in char- acter, like nothing else in contemporary literature." — Chicago Even- ing Post. " Mrs. Flora A. Steel's ' Flower of Forgiveness ' contains more of the strong studies of life in India, of the great merit of which we have already spoken. There is found here an intimate knowledge of the subject together with a vast sympathy with native feeling and native suffering. The stories are intense, often tragic with the tragedy of humble sacrifice and pain, and yet with ghmpses of Anglo-Indian fun here and there." — The Outlook. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 3 RED ROWANS FLORA ANNIE STEEL l2mo. Cloth. $1.50 " Richness of description and dramatic power are the conspicuous traits called forth in Mrs. Steel's latest noweV — A/dany Times- Union. " It is much for her art that the tragic close seems as purely acci- dental as a real occurrence, and that the rest of the book is as wholesome and sweet and fresh as the moorland air itself, — and those who love Scotland know what this praise means." — Boston Evening Transcript. "A love story, simple, sweet, and true, is a joy to all impressible young readers' hearts. A real fascination possesses every page of this novel. The story is artistically told, the construction is skilfully ingenious. The author's practised pen achieves an effective picture with few and rapid strokes, the narrative is animated and poetic in spirit, and the style is that of one accustomed to none but the best and purest forms of expression. The character-sketching is done with a delicacy of strength and a careless felicity that will delight all readers who partake of this choice banquet of ideal fiction." — Boston Courier. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 4 TALES OF THE PUNJAB TOLD BY THE PEOPLE BY FLORA ANNIE STEEL With Illustrations by J. Lockwood Kipling, CLE., and Notes by R. C. Temple. l6mo. Cloth, Gilt. $2.00 "A book that will be welcomed no less eagerly by the children than by students of folklore from a scientific standpoint is Mrs. Steel's collection of Indian stories, entitled 'Tales of the Punjab.' They were taken down by her from the very lips of the natives in some of the most primitive districts in India. Yet these tales, handed down solely by word of mouth from one generation to another, could hardly be distinguished from those in a Teutonic collection like that of the Brothers Grimm ; and even closer examination serves only to impress upon us more strongly than ever before the unity of the great Indo-European family of nations." — Nashville Banner. " It is not often that a book will appeal at once to the child and the scientist. The stories of this collection will not only amuse the juveniles, but as unwitting revelations of the roots of Hindoo char- acter and customs they would secure the attention of a Darwin." — Christian Leader. " We know of nothing just like these stories in folklore literature, certainly of nothing more charming. The stories themselves, as they have been rendered by Mrs. Steel, will delight the children, and the notes by Mr. Temple will be found of great value by the students of folklore. Mr. Kipling's illustrations are eminently appropriate and lifelike." — Boston Daily Advertiser. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 5 IN THE TIDEWAY BY FLORA ANNIE STEEL l6mo. Cloth. $1.25 " Mrs. Steel has the rare gift of charming the eye and touching the fancy. As one turns page after page he marvels and is moved, is interested and expectant, until the last page is reached." — Philadelphia Evening Record. "The story exhibits power, grace, ease, and virility in every chapter, each one of which is a romantic poem. The narrative is an animated one from the start, and exhibits much skill as well as true poetry in its development. The character-sketching is delightful, the Scottish and Norse personnel being particularly true and enjoyable." — Boston Courier. " Mrs. Steel has done some striking work in this fragment of romance, and it will increase her already great repute." — Ne%v York Tribune. 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